Airship Nation (Darkworld Chronicles Book 2)

by Tom DeMarco

  The city of St. James is nestled into the foothills of the Sierra Maestra mountains, wrapped around a long salt bay that pierces the interior in a northerly direction from the sea. From its perch above the bay, there are views south over the water and to the east of the majestic mountain range that confronts the Caribbean. The higher land to the northeast has even better views. It was here that the carriage class of the 1940s and 50s built their villas, and here where the transplanted Baracoa people first settled. On the highest point is an ancient sandstone castle, the Parador Monterreal, a relic of the Spanish era with crenelated walls in two levels and a turreted interior keep. The inside spaces of Monterreal were deliciously grand, just the place for a princess to have her court. The living apartments on the upper levels were wide and comfortable with huge windows, framing vistas in all directions. The breezes that swept through were warm enough and gentle enough and bug free, so that Kelly and her entourage could live there without ever a thought of closing or screening a window.

  The community had spread outward from the Monterreal and down into the inner city. St. James now had a population of more than six thousand, with more arriving every day. Some of the central city had been razed by wrecking rigs suspended from pavilions, sweeping back and forth over the designated areas, and dragging the rubble onto long flying barges that could be pulled out and dumped at sea. The new construction was mostly of whitewashed sandstone, buildings with generous scale and lots of open space between: Architecture by the firm of Barodin and Pease.

  For Edward, this was a dream come true, a chance to build something tangible instead of equations in the interior space of a computer or a human mind. He had always wanted to be an architect. In the archival library of Santiago, he came across a copy in French of Jourdan’s grand plan for the city of Paris, and he set out to develop a grand plan of his own. He and Pease built a model of the city as it soon would be. The model was on display in Monterreal, set out by the side of a window that looked down on the actual city so that observers could see the plan beginning to come true.

  There was progress in other aspects of life in the city as well: restaurants, cinemas, small shops, corporations, a suddenly vigorous economy. There was a court system to resolve disputes and a land use program, a farm co-op and a grange, a factory to construct small flyers for personal and family use, and a university. Chandler Hopkins was horribly torn between running the university and running everything else. Reluctantly he yielded control of the university to Walter Porter. Maria carried on as dean of the lower schools.

  What had been accomplished in the twenty six months since the move to St. James was impressive. But most of it might as well have been left undone for all the effect it had on the two little girls now flying over the city for the first time in the battle pavilion Ardent. They were oblivious to everything but the lights. All they could remember was a life with a very few, rather dim electric lights, typically 12 volt DC lamps driven from the flow generator the General had installed in his stream or the tiny wind turbine. But the city of St. James was ablaze with light. It was spread out beneath them, sparkling and fantastic.

  The Ardent’s observation port was a wide plastic bubble in the middle of the floor of the grand saloon. It was sixteen feet across with a railing around it. General Buxtehude stood with Virginia and Sissy by his side, looking down over the railing toward the city. “What do you think of that, soldiers?”

  “Wow!” Virginia said. “It’s just neat.”

  Sissy couldn’t say anything. Her jaw was too busy hanging open. Eveline Buxtehude put her arm through the crook of her husband’s elbow. She had the glisten of a tear in one eye. “We’re looking at something,” she said, “that I never thought I’d see again: Civilization.”

  Captain Martine was pointing out the sights to Dolly Buxtehude as the Ardent lost altitude and backwinded over the castle. He made no move to give orders about the approach or to interfere with the commands of his subordinate officers; all that sort of thing, the General supposed, had been worked out years before. The huge pavilion slid slowly down on a curved trajectory and finally came to rest at the side of the crenelated upper wall next to an open entryway. Within a few moments, the Buxtehude family was being escorted into the formal halls of Monterreal.

  Under the tall archway directly ahead of them was a man, dressed in grey slacks and blue blazer. To General Buxtehude, this fellow looked for all the world like a younger, thinner and slightly less pompous Chandler Hopkins.

  “Hello Gordon. Welcome to Victoria.” An outstretched hand.

  “Why, Chandler, it is you. Mr. President. It’s a pleasure.” General Buxtehude shook the Senator‘s hand warmly. He surprised himself at how pleased he was to see his old colleague again. “You’re looking fit.”

  “And yourself. And here is the lovely Eveline.” Chandler took her hand. He smiled cordially as he was introduced to young Colonel Buxtehude and Dolly and the girls. “Well,” said Chandler, gesturing around toward the high ceilinged hall with its huge tapestry hangings, “How do you like our little castle? It’s not much, but it’s home. A mere three hundred rooms, many of them not even as big as this one. But then these are difficult times. One has to make do with what one has. We’ve been scraping by, so to speak.”

  “Scraping by like the Sun King did, I should say,” offered the General.

  “We have rather come out on our feet, haven’t we? Who would have thought, Gordon, that we’d be meeting again like this? Who would have thought? How things have changed.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Well, what’s a castle without a Princess? Come along and meet our lovely Princess. My boss. She’s waiting for you in the main hall.” Chandler took Sissy and Virginia by their hands. “Have you girls ever met a real princess? Well, this is going to be a treat. I hope you know how to curtsy. Perhaps we’d better have a practice curtsy, just to see how it goes. Why, that is splendid, Virginia, very good. Almost, Sissy. Almost. Just put your right foot in back, like this…do it just like I do. Hold your skirt. That’s perfect!”

  They passed through a formal dining room with a table fully fifty feet long, now being set up for dinner. Two kitchen workers cut in front of the party, carrying a roast pig on a platter between them. The smells of that and the other dishes they were setting out started the General’s juices working.

  “Lechón asado,” Loren said. “In your honor.”

  Lechón asado was a particular favorite of the General’s. He wondered if they could have known that. There was also an enormous chocolate cake with chocolate icing on the sideboard, big enough to feed a whole infantry company. He had a weakness for chocolate cake as well.

  So far he knew almost nothing about the Princess. It wasn’t clear from his information whether she had been part of the Cornell party or part of the group they had picked up in Ft. Lauderdale. Back in his study on the farm, he had a yellow pad with the names of nearly one hundred fifty people who were known to have departed for the island the morning after the Effector was turned on. He knew little more about some of them than their names. There had been four unattached women, and next to each of their names on his pad he had placed a question mark. The question mark indicated that the name might be that of the Princess.

  The rumors being circulated about the woman, whoever she was, were nothing short of fantastic. A young adventurer who claimed to have visited Victoria in the past year had been brought to the Buxtehude farm by a neighbor. The General had queried him over the course of one whole evening. The man said that the Princess was the one who had invented the flying ships. He said that she had fought in one of the sea battles and leapt onto the deck of an invading ship with a machete in her hand to cut down the sailors who were trying to release nerve gas. He also said she beautiful. Of course she would be beautiful. His tales had all been second hand; he hadn’t been able to supply a physical description.

  Captain Martine led them to a grand hall that opened up three stories high. He stopped at the door to sco
op up a toddler in blue coveralls and cover her with kisses. The General stepped past him to take in the room. He looked up at walls and ceiling of white stucco with dark stained beams. There was an interior balcony encircling the room at the second level. One end of the hall was mostly fireplace, a fireplace as big as the ones that Errol Flynn had been backed into in one of the sword-fighting sequences of Captain Blood. Immediately opposite the fireplace was a raised dais, and on it what could only be thought of as a throne. Seated there was a strikingly pretty young woman with brown eyes and short bobbed reddish hair. She had a baby on her lap. Kneeling nearby on a window seat was a second young woman, tall and blond, talking with a serious boy of about twelve. The General looked back at the throne for an instant and then stepped straight up to the window seat, bowing to the young woman there.

  “Your majesty,” he said.

  “Welcome, General.” She offered him both her hands. “We are so honored that you have come. I am honored. Please call me Kelly.” She had clear grey eyes, full of curiosity. He looked down at her hands in his own. The fingers were long and slender. They were unadorned except for the third finger of the left which had, as a wedding ring, a tiny length of marlin cord tied with a square knot.

  “Kelly Corsayer, then. And this must be your young brother, Curtis, if I remember correctly.” He shook hands with the child, who blushed and looked down.

  “This is General Buxtehude, Curtis.” Kelly put her arm around the boy’s waist. “He has come to be our new Proctor. You’re going to like him, I think, even as much as Proctor Pinkham. We all are.”

  She took the General’s hand and led him over to the throne. “My friend Melissa Klipstein, and little Stuart. This is General Buxtehude.”

  “Mrs. Klipstein.” He bowed in front of her.

  “General.”

  “I am long retired as a soldier, but habit has caused me to accumulate bits of information, or ‘intelligence,’ as we call it. There is a rumor that one of the captains of the air fleet is named Klipstein.”

  “That’s my sweetie-pie,” said Melissa. “Elgar. You’ll meet him at dinner.”

  “Melissa’s child is almost the same age as mine, General. And so we like to get together from time to time to compare notes on their progress. Well, that’s what it’s called, what we’ve been doing all afternoon. We think of it more as playing dollies together.” Her laughter was musical.

  Captain Martine had come up behind them with the little girl. “This, General, is my second princess, and the second prettiest girl in the world. Say hello to the General, Shimmy.” The child looked up at the tall man, her intelligent grey eyes steady, her mouth slightly open.

  “Our daughter,” Kelly said, “the crown princess Shimna.” She glanced at the little girl with an indulgent smile. “Oh, lovey, you’ve got pudding on your nose.”

  The career decisions of the professional military are complex and involved. Each move needs to be analyzed carefully, keeping in mind the dictates of power and influence and position. Up until that moment, the General had not completely made up his mind whether or not to remain on Victoria and become the new Proctor. Now, face to face with a with a little girl with pudding on her nose, he decided to stay.

  The Buxtehude family and their friends the Comptons made up only a small part of the immigration arriving at St. James. On any given day, there could be as many as a few hundred new arrivals checked in by the Chancellor‘s staff. Most of them came from the nearby islands on trading pavilions. They tended to arrive in families. A few trickled in from the mainland as well, in spite of the embargo on trade with the north. They came by boat, lured by the rumor of fantastic prosperity on what was now called Victoria.

  Among the immigrants from the north were some spies. Most of these were dispatched by Rupert Paule with instructions to steal the secret of the airships or the means of access to the laser weapons. One spy, however, was in the service of a different master. He had been sent by an organization named the Governing Body. This group, consisting of six men and one woman, governed something that was not exactly a political entity, nor an army (though it had elements of each), but a kind of church. Its existence was unknown to the establishment in Washington. If Rupert Paule had known of the group and its aims, he would have considered it another enemy.

  The spy was called Nehemiah. His name at birth had been Stanley Darling, though he was the only person left on earth who remembered that. Nehemiah was a much more fitting name for a man on a mission from God.

  As the Buxtehudes were gliding in toward Victoria, Nehemiah was making his way down the west coast of Florida toward the town of Naples. There he contracted with a local fisherman for passage to Key West. He paid for the service with silver dollars. The fisherman’s name was Nicolo. They set out in a small sailing smack, just before dawn.

  Within an hour, Nehemiah was horribly seasick. He had never been at sea before. They hugged the coast as far as Cape Sable. The passage from there to the lee of the Pine Islands was rough, and he wished he were dead. He could not even hold his head up. By morning of the second day, though, they were in calmer water. Nicolo gave him some dry cracker bread and part of a head of lettuce to eat. Nehemiah slept some as they continued, feeling better. A sign of his improvement was that he was able to take part in a conversation, though neither one had much to say. After a while, he asked if he could steer the little boat. The old fisherman said sure, happy to be free of the tiller. He gave instruction to the novice sailor. By afternoon of the second day, Nehemiah was able to tack the boat himself without aid.

  “My real destination is the island of Cuba,” he said. “It’s only ninety miles further to the south.”

  Nicolo nodded. “Lots of stories about Cuba these days. I dunno if there’s any truth to them. I know people who have been, but never anybody who came back. So it must be great there, or else fatal.”

  “Maybe the streets are paved with gold.”

  “Maybe. Guess I’ll never know.”

  “If you would take me as far as Cuba, I would pave your palm with more silver. And you would know what’s there. It would be an adventure.”

  “Oh sure. Not for me though. My old lady would worry. In the old days, there would be a phone in Key West, and I would give her a call. Then she’d rest easy. But as it is, I got to go back.”

  “I see.” Nehemiah didn’t seem too disappointed. After a moment he asked, “Are you a man of God?”

  “Not me. I’m a Greek.” He put his head back and laughed at his joke.

  Nehemiah joined easily in the laughter, though he had no idea why it was funny. He got up and stretched, letting go the tiller. Nicolo took it over without a fuss. Nehemiah passed behind him, as though he were headed aft to the bumpkin to take a leak. But instead he turned around and looked at the back of the fisherman’s neck. A man who was practiced in this sort of thing would have had a technique for it, an elegant motion that used up no extra energy. But Nehemiah had little experience to guide him. He balled up his fist and hit Nicolo with all his might on the side of the neck, driving the fist in along the line of the shoulders. There was a satisfying loud click.

  The fisherman went down in a heap, thrashing grotesquely. Nehemiah stared at him, fascinated and charmed. The right leg, in particular, seemed to have a life of its own, perhaps the last life left in the whole body. It wouldn’t stop kicking. An inhuman sound was coming out of the mouth, a gurgling from deep down in the throat.

  After watching for a few minutes, he became bored. There was a lot to do anyway. He threw the still shaking body overboard. The boat had come into the wind. He remembered Nicolo back-winding the sail to turn the boat from a stalled position, and now he tried the same maneuver. The little craft jibed awkwardly, not at all what he had intended, but it got going again. He circled all the way around, back onto his course. As he sailed away from the body, he heard a last sputtering gurgle.

  There was sin involved in taking a life. It was not a grave sin, as the man had been an unbeliever
, but still a sin. He shoved aside a pile of netting beside the tiller to kneel down, to attend to the clearing of his soul. Nehemiah prayed with the tiller over his shoulder and an eye on the compass. Almost immediately he could sense forgiveness washing over him. When he stood up, he felt altogether refreshed.

  He sailed south for another day and a night. By the time he arrived he was drained again from seasickness. He beached the boat and made the rest of his journey on foot.

  9

  CAPITAL LOSSES

  The first Persistent Effector, still in its handcrafted binnacle box, had been given a place of honor in the council room in the west wing of Monterreal castle. It had a cheerful pink glow at its center, steady as ever after four years of operation. The new Proctor, before he had been on the job for even a week, had moved the Effector to a room of its own, and set up a twenty four hour uniformed guard around it. He wanted visitors to Monterreal (people were always trooping through) to see the glow and to understand that this was what they were defending. He wanted them to see the guard too, to know that the continued operation of the Effector was always threatened. That one Effector, Buxtehude said, was to serve as a symbol. But he also wanted additional backups made and distributed around Victoria.

  Loren had personally attended to the manufacture of of twenty new units. They were assembled in the workshop of the airship yards at La Sabana, just above the city. When they were done, he delivered them to Van Hooten and Buxtehude. Admiral Van called together the 16 captains of Victoria’s fleet, and distributed the units. Four commanders, carefully selected, were given units as well. The orders Van Hooten gave his twenty officers were almost identical to those Loren had given in the first month after their arrival in Baracoa, when he had decided to distribute and conceal the first set of backup Effectors: “You are to go alone with your device, to some location, known only to you, and secret it in a safe, dry place, a cave or natural crevice, where the Effector is unlikely to be stumbled upon or disturbed by any living creature. You are expected to choose the spot yourself, to place the unit with your own hands. On the maps you have before you, Victorian territory has been divided into twenty numbered sectors. There are twenty numbered slips of paper in the hat you see on the table in front the Proctor. You will pass by the hat and select a slip. That will tell you which sector is yours. The location you choose within the sector is your own business. When you have chosen your number, you will depart this room without speaking to anyone, go directly to the airfield and take off in a one-person flyer to carry out your mission, and then never speak of it again.” He nodded to Jared Williams at his side. “Captain Williams, will you select the first number, sir?”