Competence

by Gail Carriger

  “Explain!” Tasherit hissed at him. Even her anger was beautiful. Fierce, but beautiful.

  “I don’t… That is, I can’t… That is…” Percy let out a puff of air he didn’t realise he’d been holding. Then he glared at the stunning creature pacing before him. How dare she put me in this kind of position? The very last thing I should ever want is to be at all involved in my sister’s love life, let alone tangentially. “She is difficult.”

  “So I gathered. Have you anything more useful to offer?”

  Percy shook his head. “Do excuse me. I have, uh, New World vampires to investigate.”

  “A pleasure, as always, Professor Tunstell.” Tasherit stalked away to her own room, closing the door with a decided click. Although not, Percy noted, sliding home the dead bolt.

  Really, emotions are running awfully high all of a sudden on this ship. Percy retreated to his library, where Footnote bunted at his ankles and Aquinas proved modestly distracting. At least the epistemologist was a great deal more sensible than anyone else aboard the Spotted Custard at the moment.

  Primrose did not make an appearance above decks for their puff up into the aetherosphere. Percy wasn’t surprised. No doubt she was busy sulking in her room. And Formerly Floote and Tasherit were down for the duration. Thus it was a smaller audience than normal as he took the helm back from Virgil and piloted them into the grey.

  Percy had the calculations noted, the level dialled in to the Mandenall Pudding Probe, and the charts to hand, but there was no denying his nervousness. These currents were very little used, and he’d found only two references to the first one. He had to hope it would carry them in the correct direction or they’d be in a tumbled teakettle situation. If this current had drifted, or been noted down incorrectly, they’d come down out of the grey over open ocean with no recourse and not enough fuel to get them safely to land. They might be thousands of miles offshore. Even the nicest of dirigibles was good transport only with known currents to hand. This leg had them using two underutilised eastward currents. I must be right about this. If my calculations are off…

  He corrected himself. My calculations are never off! Buck up, Percy old chap. And let’s float this beauty.

  He narrowed his eyes, flipped on the propeller, and gripped the helm sure and firm, using muscles he’d only recently developed by helming. He pushed until they pointed in the correct direction.

  He picked up the speaking tube to engineering.

  “Yes?” Aggie’s curt voice at the other end.

  “Approaching the aetherosphere. Is engineering ready for multiple puffs?”

  “Of course. You gave us the timetable.”

  Percy bristled. “Ship’s protocol demands that I get a verbal affirmation.”

  “Consider it affirmed then, Freckles. Now get off the blowhorn, some of us have real work to do.” A decided click from the other end.

  “Really.” Percy shook his head and looked at Rue, who was hovering nervously nearby. “I don’t know why Quesnel allows her to converse with others. There’s no excuse for that level of rudeness.”

  Rue laughed heartily. “Says Percival Tunstell.”

  Percy had no idea what was so funny. Really, one would think after twenty years of association he would understand Prudence Akeldama more. And yet she only became more confusing.

  Fortunately, it was time to catch their first current.

  He puffed them up.

  The grey surrounded them completely. Close, still silence was everywhere.

  Rue grimaced but Percy felt no change in emotional sensation at all. He never did. It was only that things were a little muffled and curiously absent of sound and smell and taste. One was suffused with an eerie sensation of knowing that the earth must still be there, far below them, but no longer visible. Percy rather liked the aetherosphere, a restful sort of place, like taking a deep breath and sinking down into the murk at the bottom of a lake. Only substantially less slimy.

  He checked his notes and did two full puffs up in quick succession. They shifted through the Charybdis currents, those tiny useless directionless flows that hindered travel for years until the first explorers determined that there were other more useful currents in between them.

  The Custard caught one Charybdis and swirled into a lazy waltz-like spin. It wasn’t bumpy per se, but the ship listed a little, a hint at the possibility of danger. If one current caught and twisted the balloon section while another caught at the gondola, then they were in real trouble.

  Percy puffed them again. So many puffs put them fully within the known levels of the grey. There were an unknown number of levels: no one had managed to get to the top as of yet, because the higher one puffed, the less breathable the air became and the stronger the Charybdis currents. So far, twelve puffs was the highest anyone had ever gone. Percy fancied a diver’s rig, with breathing tube trailing down, might do the trick for puffing even higher. But he would rather someone else tried it out. He wasn’t the adventurous sort at all, not with his own safety. Well, not unless his sister and her best friend forced him into it. He would have been happy at home in London with his library and his academic arguments and his mother’s meddling. Fine. Well. Perhaps not happy, but content enough. Instead here I am, navigating an unstable aetherosphere.

  Below him, the Mandenall Probe spat out its viscous fluid near one of Percy’s shoes, confirming his supposition. Pulling himself back to the serious business of navigation, Percy puffed them up one more full depression. This should be the correct current.

  He relaxed slightly but then they listed badly to one side. The balloon above him began to cave.

  “Percy!” yelled Rue as if he hadn’t noticed.

  “Yes, Captain, I see it.” It was a switchback current, dragging the airship in two different directions. We aren’t fully nested in the charted one, and a different current, one that isn’t supposed to be there, is hitting us broadside.

  Percy checked his calculations against the puffer dial, to make absolutely certain he’d entered everything into the probe correctly. Fortunately for his ego, everything matched up perfectly. Because I don’t make silly mistakes.

  Unfortunately, that meant they had a different problem. Either the current had shifted vertically or it no longer existed and the charts lied. There was no way to know which of these options was the reality.

  “Captain, charted current not as charted. Orders?” This was, after all, Rue’s job.

  Rue frowned. “Assessment of most likely scenario given what you know of the previous navigation jaunts?”

  Percy frowned. The record of this current was over five years old. That meant the ship which had puffed before them was of a vastly inferior technology. Calculations on puffing were likely to have been less precise, based on instrumentation alone, regardless of whether the navigator was as good as he was. (Which was unlikely, of course.) An older ship was also less accurate on height per puff. But what model of ship had it been?

  Percy thought over what he knew of the records. Chinese. Junk with a softwood hull for the gondola, like the Custard. Smaller two-balloon structure. Puff would need to be timed for both balloons and would let off excess air unmonitored. Percy rapidly did the mathematical adjustments in his head.

  “Percy! We’re listing!”

  “Sorry, Captain. I’m attempting to calculate the differential in puff quality between us and an older-model Limber Junk Mark Eight.”

  “Well, calculate faster.”

  Percy huffed out in annoyance. He was loath to do it but he simply didn’t know enough about older dirigible construction. He picked up the tube to engineering.

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Phinkerlington, put Mr Lefoux on the tube.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Now, Miss Phinkerlington.”

  “But—”

  “NOW!” Percy never raised his voice. Around him the decklings stilled in shock. Even Rue paused her customary frenetic pacing. />
  Aggie grumbled but he heard her yell for her supervisor. Moments later Quesnel Lefoux’s cheerful voice said, “This had better be important, Professor.” Things must be tense in the boiler room, as the man’s French accent was showing.

  Percy didn’t bother to explain. “Tell me the puff differential between our ship and an older-model junk.”

  “How much older?”

  “Five years at least, possibly more. I simply need to know if a Junk Mark Eight would likely put out more or less air for an upward puff.”

  “Percy, this had better be important.”

  Percy looked up to see Rue red-faced and sweating, the balloon above her caving even more. The whole ship was now tilted to the left at a twenty-degree angle - things, people were beginning to slide. They had to be feeling this in engineering. Soon the boilers would cease to function. Or, of course, explode.

  “I suspect our lives may depend upon it, Mr Lefoux.”

  “More than us. More!” gasped out Quesnel, and then, “I must go, second kettle isn’t looking healthy.”

  Percy hung up without bothering to sign off. Letting out air meant the older ship would take each puff higher, as they would have had a higher helium ratio. Assuming the charted current was still there, this meant the Spotted Custard needed to drop down slightly.

  Percy took on half a quantity of air and depuffed them a half mark. He looked up.

  This was the main issue when floating, everything was slower to act and react than with other forms of transport. This was usually a good thing. But in this instance, he couldn’t tell if the cave-in was getting worse or better.

  “Rue, I need an assessment, ask your high eyes.”

  “Nips!” Rue hollered up to their deckling in the crow’s nest. “That better or worse?”

  “Hold a moment, Lady Captain!”

  A tiny figure far above them leaned out from one arm and one leg and swung himself in a wide and hazardous arc.

  “Don’t kill yourself, you nubbin!” yelled Rue, her face now quite pale.

  “It’s looking better, Lady Captain. But I’m thinking top point is still in that twister.”

  Percy depuffed them again, this time only a quarter.

  The balloon began to re-form into its nice chubby shape once more, a big spotted ladybird.

  Rue let out a long breath. “Good job, Percy.”

  The speaker tube squawked at him. Percy picked it up.

  “What the hell was that!” Quesnel Lefoux’s voice was all irritation, but smoothly English once again. No hint of the French. All was now well with the boilers.

  Percy glared at the tube. “Not my fault. Original charting was off due to an older-technology bias.”

  “So the probe coordinates were off?”

  “Yes. And before you ask, yes, I’ll make a note to take into account this bias for the next jump and any further charts originating with airships of this class. Yes, we’re going off the same charts for the next leg. Looks like each charted puff was about an eighth of a point higher than modern measures.”

  “You’ll report it back to the nearest chartographer of record when we reach the next aetherographic transmitter?”

  “Have to. Anything less than a ship of our calibre would never have survived that kind of twist. And it was purely a lucky guess I made, that we needed to depuff. Others might not make that same choice.”

  “You’re sure depuffing put us in the correct current?” Of course, Quesnel asked the question that Percy really didn’t want to ask himself.

  Percy didn’t want to admit it, especially not to an academic Frenchman, but if anything happened to him it was better if this man knew. Quesnel was the only other person aboard capable of making the calculations needed.

  “No. But it’s my best guess based on what we know of old junks and these currents. Compass says we are heading east, so that’s something. How fast is another question, but we’re nested in it now.”

  The Frenchman on the other end let out a sigh. “So you say.”

  He then hung up the tube without further discussion. Percy glared at it. Then he glared at Rue.

  “It really wasn’t my fault!”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” she said, condescending.

  “My calculations were based on faulty data.”

  “Of course they were.”

  Simply because she couldn’t understand what he did to get them where they were going!

  “Ex nihilo nihil fit. I am surrounded by inferior intellects,” Percy told Footnote, who had appeared at some point in the preceding chaos and was now sharing the navigation pit with him. When Sekhmet took to her bed, Footnote considered the entire ship his personal domain, and preferred to be wherever Percy was.

  Rue didn’t listen and Footnote only gave him a wide-eyed look of terror. The cat did not approve of his ship suddenly tilting wildly to one side.

  “How long are we floating inside this one?” Rue asked.

  “I gave you the details, Captain!” And he had. He’d pulled all the charts and notations together for her to look over hours ago.

  “Yes, well, I missed that part.”

  Percy sighed. “We’re four days in this one before we drop down to atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean. Once we are out of the grey there are no landmarks to let us know if we are on course. So the next leg is even more dicey. We’ll be out for a few hours while we wait for the next current to shift over us. Then we do this again, hopefully without the balloon collapsing. As I told Quesnel, I’ll have to correct my calculations based on our newly assessed floatation errors. Calculations were off by—”

  Rue held up a hand before he could explain further. “I don’t need the details, Percy. Will four days be long enough for you to do what needs to be done?”

  Percy looked at her in disgust. “Four hours is more than enough time. Didn’t you listen, Rue? I only need to adjust the puffs by an eighth and then—”

  “Yes, yes, Percy, I’m certain you will do an excellent job.”

  I hate it when she gets like this. And she does seem to be worse than usual. I wonder if there is something seriously wrong with her? No, only Rue being Rue. Percy sniffed. Loudly. “I’m going to get started right away. This is supposed to be a quiet current, now that we’re in it. Unless, of course, we are in the wrong one, or a new one. Virgil can take over for me for the time being.”

  Ans I need to be where other people are not for a while. Percy knew himself well enough for that. Especially as everyone clearly blamed him for the rather exciting puff they’d just endured. And absolutely no one was smart enough for him to explain how it wasn’t his fault.

  He glared at everyone, and everyone - decklings, deckhands, Spoo, Virgil, Rue, and Anitra, who were all on deck for the hop - looked away from him.

  Percy stormed off to his quarters, grumbling about inferior intellects and clutching the offending charts to his breast.

  At some point over the last few hours he seemed to have misplaced his hat. He was perversely smug about the fact that no one, not even Virgil, dared to tell him so.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In Which Thomas Aquinas is an Absolute Corker

  Primrose caught her brother hurrying to his library. He was gripping charts and looking fit to be tied.

  “Percy, what was that? I’ve never felt such a rough puff from you, not unless we were under attack.”

  “Oh, don’t you start!”

  “We tilted, we positively tilted.” Prim was feeling rather overwhelmed by the way her day was going thus far. Then to have all one’s possessions suddenly go sliding across the room for no good reason. Well! That on top of a highly sentimental encounter with an eager werecat? It was too much. Really, quite, too much.

  “It happens sometimes when a chap’s starting data is flawed. I’m fixing it for the next one. But it wasn’t my fault!” Percy waved the chart at her. As if she could even read one of those mysterious things.

 
“I never said it was, brother dear. Do you think Tash… uh, Miss Sekhmet is well? I worry she may have fallen off her bed all unawares with this kind of rough activity.”

  Percy glared at her. “Really, Tiddles, that’s most unfair. If you genuinely don’t want her, you must stop leading her on.”

  Primrose felt herself heat with agitation. “Leading her on? Leading her on! What nonsense you talk.”

  Percy snorted and scrunched his charts in clear annoyance. “Either she is yours to worry about or she is not. It’s no good getting all concerned and aflutter when she’s fast asleep and can’t see it, only to ignore her when she is awake. It’s like how you are gentle and petting when she is a lioness and aloof when she is not.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Percival, really!” Percy really did come up with the most extraordinary statements on occasion. My brother is a loon. I’m not aloof! I’m polite and friendly and a good-natured wholesome young lady of quality.

  Percy was obviously still grumpy about the bad float. He was also frustrated at having to talk to her when he would rather be alone recalculating his charts or what have you. Prim recognised the signs. I only want to know what happened. Trust my brother to turn it into a ridiculous argument about his ego and my actions.

  Percy let out a noise like an aggrieved bagpipe. “Primrose Tunstell! Even I have noticed your bad behaviour. Me! And I rarely notice anything about people - or so everyone implies. Especially not people with other people. You are being cruel to that woman. And a hardened flirt. I thought my sister was better than that.”

  Prim felt her eyes fill with tears. Yes, Percy could be cruel himself when he deemed it warranted, especially regarding her intelligence and lack of advanced education, but he wasn’t often cutting about her behaviour. Mostly because, to be fair, she never gave him reason. “I have been perfectly proper in all things. As I always am.”

  “Exactly!” said Percy, as if this explained his annoyance perfectly. At which juncture he slammed into his library, leaving Prim alone in the hallway.