by Karen Garvin
“Well, you’ll have to think of something,” said Turner, drawing out the words in his nasal voice. He watched Edward’s antics with the air of an unamused teacher about to discipline an unruly student.
Edward sucked in air and let it out in an explosive sigh. There was nothing he could do except comply: Meade wanted more of the Hekatite, and Edward would have to find a way to produce it. That was the deal he had struck with the Queen’s agent. It wasn’t the first time that Edward found himself regretting having taken the job at Seacombe. If only he was still in London, he could be sitting down for an evening drink right now with his feet propped up before the fire. But there were no fireplaces on Seacombe, and no liquor of any sort was allowed. At least, not officially.
Finally, Edward stopped in front of Turner. He nodded curtly. “Very well, tell the professor that I’ll figure something out.”
Turner smiled again and left the laboratory. Edward stared at the closed door without seeing it, his mind racing, but empty of thoughts.
“May I be of any help?” asked Clyde. The gangly youth stood awkwardly between the work desk and the door, his hands dangling by his sides.
“I’m afraid we’re going to be working some very long days for the next few weeks,” said Edward. He returned to the table, the scientist close behind. “Show me what you’ve been looking at.”
“Right, well,” said Clyde. He pulled the microscope slide off the tray and reinserted the first one. “Take a look at this.”
“What is it I’m looking at?” Edward bent to the eyepiece and stared through the microscope, holding his hand in front of his other eye to block out the room’s ambient light. He tweaked the microscope’s focusing knob until the image of the plant cells came into focus. Inside the brightly lit circle he could see the rectangular outline of plant cell walls. The interiors of some were marked by a few purplish patches, stained dark by an iodine dye.
“See those dark spots? We believe those are the cell structures that are responsible for producing the sap,” said Clyde. “There are very few of them in that sample, but take a look at this one.” He switched out the slide with a second one, carefully placing the first in a wooden box set back against the wall.
Even to Edward’s naked eye the sample appeared darker than the first, but when he peered through the microscope he was surprised at the number of dark spots in the plant cells. “It’s more than twice as many, isn’t it? You are keeping track of this, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m counting all of them.” Clyde traced a line in his open ledger, his voice growing stronger with confidence as he spoke about his work. “I’ve counted forty of them so far, and this is the best slide. If the dark spots are what we think, then we should be able to breed an orchid with the ability to produce much more sap per flower than the native ones we’ve been harvesting.”
Edward studied Clyde’s face. He could tell that the young man was trying to remain unruffled, but the tightness around his eyes told Edward that he didn’t like being questioned about his competency. But Edward didn’t give a fig what the man liked or didn’t like; Edward had been put in charge of overseeing the research and production of the Hekatite and he was going to make sure that things were done correctly.
“How soon will you be able to test that idea, Mr. Ackerman?”
Clyde’s jaw slackened and he hesitated before answering. “It will take some time, Mr. Gray. And we can’t be sure those dark spots indicate a more prolific …”
“Yes, yes, I understand that.” Edward’s tone was clipped, but he kept his arms at his sides, knowing that waving his arms tended to annoy the youth. He needed Clyde to be cooperative right now, not defensive, but Edward couldn’t take the time to listen to the details of the ongoing research. “How long, Mr. Ackerman? A week? Two weeks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take your best guess, then.” Edward leaned toward Clyde.
“Longer than that,” said Clyde in a rushed tone. “The Hekate orchids are very slow growing. Even if we graft them today it will be six months before we can possibly coax the first ones to flower.”
“We don’t have six months. Meade wants more Hekatite and we only have three months to produce the amount that he wants.”
“Well, that’s not possible,” declared Clyde. “We haven’t been able to get the plants to grow any faster in the conservatory than they do out in the wild.”
“Find a way,” snapped Edward, folding his arms. “If you can’t grow the damn things, then you’re going to have to scour the island for more flowers.”
“But my research! I won’t have time for it if I have to go out hunting for orchids.”
“Damn your research!” bellowed Edward. He jabbed a thick forefinger toward the microscope, choosing to ignore Clyde’s shocked expression. “You’ve done enough looking through that thing for a lifetime! Get out there and grow some of those improved plants or find the regular ones out in the woods. Better yet, do both. I don’t much care how you do it, but get the job done.”
Clyde looked down at his shoes, his face reddening and his mouth set in a thin line.
So, the man wasn’t going to argue back, thought Edward. That was a good sign. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon in the laboratory trying to coddle the scientist’s overwrought ego. Sometimes these fellows needed to be pushed. He knew that Meade would spend time trying to convince the man of his point of view, but Edward preferred the direct approach. Besides, if the scientist knew how little Edward really understood about the biology of the Hekate orchids, it wouldn’t bode well for Edward’s authority on the island.
Before Clyde could come to his senses, Edward wished him a good afternoon and left the stuffy laboratory. He stepped out of the building and blinked several times to get used to the bright sunshine. A cold wind whipped off the ocean and made his face sting.
Seacombe Village was a small collection of buildings set off from a small natural harbor. The town, such as it was, climbed halfway up the surrounding hills, but the conservatory was located halfway across the island, built into the caldera of the extinct volcano that occupied the northern portion of the island. The crater acted as a natural windbreak, keeping the caldera warmer than the rest of the wind-chilled island, and its lack of trees meant that it was an ideal place to build the glass conservatory. But it was a very long walk from the harbor to the top of the mountain and the vegetation tended to overwhelm the path no matter how rigorously the groundskeepers pruned back the plants.
Edward didn’t wish to be unkind to Clyde, and he knew that the man’s disgust at having to get started on grafting the orchids was because he would have to make the difficult trip across the island twice a day until the plants were established and could be turned over into an assistant’s care. But Clyde was the best botanist on the island, and Edward needed his skills in the conservatory as well as the laboratory. An assistant could count spots on microscope slides, and there was no use wasting Clyde’s talents just because he didn’t like to hike. Edward didn’t have the time to mollycoddle anyone, and he’d been hired by Meade precisely because he could be hard-nosed and determined.
Making his way along the rustic wooden path that passed for a road on Seacombe, Edward turned inland and headed to his office, a first-floor room at the front of a building, where he shared space with the island’s quartermaster. The office had been a mess when he first arrived on Seacombe and it had taken the better part of a fortnight to sort out the paperwork and clear the desk enough so that he could even see the furniture under the stacks of unanswered correspondence.
The quartermaster, Albert Palmer, had resented Edward’s meddling and disappeared up into the hills for three days until Edward sent some men out to find him. Since then, they had reached an uneasy truce, with each man staying on his respective side of the room and avoiding conversation as much as possible.
When Edward pushed through the door he saw Palmer sitting at his desk. Edward had expected to have the office to h
imself today, and he sighed in frustration. When Palmer was in the office there was usually a nonstop stream of visitors, all requesting items that needed to be shipped into Seacombe. And most annoying, Palmer had a loud, nasal voice that grated on Edward’s nerves.
Palmer half-turned, saw Edward, and resumed his writing. Edward scowled at Palmer’s back and went to his own desk, where he pulled out several files and sat down to read. He’d never had so much paperwork in his life. He stared out the front window for several minutes, gathering his thoughts.
Meade’s demand was absurd, yet Edward would do everything in his power to meet the fuel quota. He went through the personnel file and made a list of anyone who had the merest hint of knowledge of the plants on Seacombe. The island was not very big, but it would still take a dedicated hunt to locate enough orchids to refine the amount of Hekatite that was required for the airship race.
Edward finished his list. He would have to ask a favor of Palmer, something that was distinctly unpleasant. He approached the other man’s desk and cleared his throat. “Mr. Palmer, may I have a word, please?”
Palmer frowned when Edward’s shadow fell across his desk. After a moment he put down his pen and sat up straight. “What is it, Mr. Gray?”
“I need a group of men for some work. Will you please locate these men and have them meet me here at two o’clock this afternoon?” Edward placed the list on Palmer’s desk. There were twenty names on the list.
“What is this for?”
“An orchid hunt.”
“Another one? Didn’t you just pick the island clean last week?”
Edward took a deep breath, biting back the acerbic reply that he wanted to make. Now wasn’t the time to antagonize Palmer any more than he already had by crossing into the man’s territory. “We didn’t ‘pick the island clean.’ The men barely left the shorefront. There are plenty of trees in the island’s interior that haven’t even been scouted out yet.”
Palmer deigned to look at Edward. “Very well. I’ll send someone around to gather the men. I suppose you’re going to have the meeting here? A loud meeting?”
“This is my office, too,” replied Edward. He was careful to keep his voice neutral, but if Palmer wanted to play rough then Edward would go along with it. Besides, orders from Meade superseded all other work on the island, no matter whether Palmer or Edward or anyone else liked it. And since Edward reported directly to Meade, he would pull rank if he needed to get the job done.
“Is that all?” Palmer prodded the list with his pen as though touching it would burn his fingers. Ink seeped from the pen nib and formed a dark blue splotch on the paper.
“Yes, for now.” The mess Palmer was making on the list irritated Edward, but he pushed the thought aside and pulled out his pocket watch. It was nearly noon. “I’m off for some lunch. I’ll be back before the men arrive.”
Without waiting for an answer, Edward snapped the watch shut with his thumb. He cleared off his desk, locked the drawer, and left the office as quickly as he could. As soon as he was outside the tension in his body dissipated, like mist in sunshine.
* * *
When Edward returned to the office just before one-thirty, he found three men waiting in the office. They stood by his desk and pretended not to be looking at the papers lying on top of it. Edward smiled to himself, knowing that the sheets of paper were blank. It was an old habit, but he never left his work out for anyone to casually see. Business, like government work, had its share of spies.
By two o’clock nineteen of the men had shown up. Edward decided not to wait for the last man on the list. If he showed up he’d have to catch any missing information from one of the other men. If he didn’t show up, there would be detention waiting for him.
As the group grew larger, the noise level in the room rose. Palmer grew increasingly irritated until he finally snapped his book shut and left. Almost at once, the group of men expanded to fill the office, as though some invisible barrier had been removed. The twentieth man pushed through the office door and took a place at the outer edge of the group.
Good, thought Edward. All twenty had shown up; he didn’t have to worry about disciplining anyone. He held up a hand and the talking subsided as the men focused their attention on Edward, who wasted little time in explaining the need for Hekate orchids.
“How many of you have gone looking for the orchids before?”
A few hands went up, far less than Edward was hoping for. But at least some of the men would recognize the flowers. There were three related varieties of orchids growing on Seacombe, but only the true Hekate orchid produced the necessary sap to make Hekatite. Distinguishing the plants from one another was a bit tricky, but it fortunately it didn’t take much training to learn to identify the correct species.
“Very well. Since there are five of you who know what to look for, I’m going to divide you into five groups.” Edward reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a map of the island. There was very little information on it, but the most detailed area was the harbor and a small promontory, where there had been surveying done as a prelude to building a lighthouse. A rough circle indicated the caldera, and the location of the conservatory had been penciled in, but the interior of the island was a blank space.
As Edward spread the map flat, the group of men closed in around his desk and leaned in for a better look. Edward circled a small area behind the village with a pencil. “This area was harvested last week. I need you to spread out and head inland.”
“That’s difficult ground,” said one of the men.
“Yeah, it’s all uphill!” said another. A chorus of laughter greeted this explanation.
“I’m aware of that,” said Edward. “But it needs to be done. There aren’t going to be any flowers left along the shore, so don’t waste time looking for them there.” He circled five areas on the map and assigned a group to each. “Does anyone have surveying skills? Or can you draw a map?”
“I can draw maps.”
“What’s your name?”
“Henry Mitchell, sir.”
“Well, Mitchell, you’ve just gotten the job of mapmaker.” Edward handed him a pencil and some paper. “I don’t expect perfection, and we’ll have surveyors in the area before long, but try to get some of the major landmarks sorted out for me, will you?”
“Yes, Mr. Gray.” Mitchell took the materials and put them in a pocket.
“Very well. The five of you who know the flowers, you may pick the men that you want to go with you. Mitchell, I’d like you to go with the group that is assigned to this spot.” He indicated a circle closest to the caldera. “We need to map a path up to the caldera that is less hazardous than the one we have now. Anything you can do to fill in some of the blanks on the map will be appreciated.”
“Are we starting now?”
“In the morning,” replied Edward. “Get an early start and make sure you put in a full day. I’ll get the kitchen to pack some food for you so you don’t have to return for your meals. I want as many orchids as you can gather, and I want them as quickly as possible, so don’t waste time.”
The men seemed interested in the assignment, but the prospect of being out in the woods all day and having to climb the steep hills of Seacombe cast a pall over the group. Edward looked from one man to another, taking in their expressions and posture, and realized that they would probably fail. They needed to be more motivated.
“There is one other thing,” said Edward, keeping his eye on the mood of the men. “The group that brings in the most orchids will receive a bonus. Make sure they are usable flowers. Buds and spent flowers are not acceptable. And make sure they are the real Hekate orchids!”
* * *
By the end of the week the groups had collected several hundred orchids. Edward tallied up the number for each group and paid out the bonus money. Besides amassing enough flowers to start the refining process, he had also succeeded in building a cadre of now-seasoned orchid hunters who were more than willing to clim
b the island’s rocky interior for a reward.
The bags of orchids were taken to the refining lab, where assistants poured the flowers out onto metal screens and used metal tongs to separate them. They would be allowed to air dry for a week before the next stage of the refining process could start.
“This is enough to get started, isn’t it?” Edward asked Wilkins, the man in charge of the lab.
“Yes, certainly,” replied the tall, thin supervisor. “We can process much smaller amounts of Hekatite at a time; it just doesn’t make good economic sense.”
“How much fuel do you think this lot is going to produce?”
Wilkins inspected the flowers, leaning over the screens and taking care not to touch any of the plants. “Maybe two, three, pounds.”
“That’s all?” Edward’s good mood evaporated. Meade had requested sixty pounds of fuel. They’d need at least thirty times the number of orchids that the men had brought in. Edward doubted if there were enough plants on the island to supply that much sap.
Wilkins nodded distractedly. “There is very little sap in each one, as you know.”
“How much Hekatite is held in our reserves?”
“I don’t know exactly. At least fifteen pounds, maybe eighteen at the most. Why do you ask?”
Edward sucked at his teeth, his agitation getting the better of him, and paced the lab. He’d have to send the orchid hunters out again, but he’d already known that. He was planning to give them a few days of rest before asking them to go out again, but there wasn’t time.
“Why the sudden rush for so much Hekatite?” Wilkins clasped his hands behind his back and watched Edward as he turned back toward the screens.
