Airship Nation (Darkworld Chronicles Book 2)

by Tom DeMarco

  Kelly nodded dreamily.

  “Now I have a project that is the real me. I am so involved that I might as well be under the influence of a narcotic. I can’t get enough of it. But sometimes, sometimes, I just wish I could go back and have someone to share my obsession with.”

  “You have Mr. Pease…”

  “Pease is my guru. I sit at his feet, Kelly. He knows so much more than I will ever know. And I do love him, my dear old D.D. But he is not a peer. He is for me now what Homer always used to be, an inspiration and a counselor and someone to turn to for direction. So I have my Homer. What’s missing terribly for me is Loren.”

  “Loren, most of all?”

  “Oh, yes. He and I were like children, playing together in the great playground that is science, stumbling hand-in-hand into nooks and crannies of the subject, some of them as charming as the closet of Narnia. We were equally innocent and equally delighted by it all. How I miss him! Sometimes I want to grab him and make him see the perfect vault of a roof I have just designed or even a little window seat that fits perfectly into a room and makes you smile when you enter. Only he looks at those things and doesn’t see anything. We have gone off in separate unresolvable directions. That’s the saddest thing of all.”

  “Edward, don’t let it happen! Shake him, make him see. He wants to see what you want him to. He feels the same way about you.”

  “Oh no, I think he’s lost to me. Gone off and married a fancy princess, fathered a lovely little daughter, taken charge of a whole navy. He’s got no time for an old friend from his youth.”

  “You are full of brandy and hot air, Edward Barodin. Loren is and always will be your great friend. All you have to do is spend a little time with him.”

  “Not much chance of that. What with his obligations and my own. We hardly ever see each other, except at an occasional dinner like tonight. And look what happens. He is so exhausted, he staggers off to bed at nine thirty.”

  “Well, I’m going to intervene. I’m going to send the two of you off on a mission together. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it all this last week. I’ve decided to send you to Europe.”

  “Kelly, get serious. I’ve got a list as long as my arm with tasks to complete for the University buildings…”

  “They’ll get done without you, Edward, you’ll be surprised. Someone else will step forward and honcho the work and be delighted at the opportunity.”

  “I won’t say I’m not tempted, mind you, but I really can’t…”

  “Edward! Think of me. What is the fun of being a princess if I don’t get to order people around? This is an order. You have got to go to Europe with Loren, you have simply got to. Or I will send you off to the headsman. I am a very wicked princess. I have tantrums if I don’t get my every whim.”

  “Well, of course, this puts an entirely different light on it. I didn’t even know you had a headsman.”

  “Dozens.”

  Victoria had made contact with the French government the year before and begun a tentative trading relationship. The French were eager for transport for their goods, but more than that had hopes of being allowed to manufacture airships of their own. The council decided to maintain a monopoly of airships for five years at least, but then to begin spreading the technology among relatively stable societies. The French seemed likely to qualify. There had been an exchange of ambassadors with Paris.

  Kelly’s motive, however, for sending the Ardent to France and then on to Spain had little to do with international relations, and not a great deal more to do with reinforcing Loren and Edward’s friendship. Most of all the purpose of the trip was for Loren to make contact again with his family. It had been a mystery to her that he had not yet gone back to Alba de Tormes, where his sisters lived, had not even sent a message. When he spoke of his family, he always seemed full of affection, yet he had been in no hurry to return. He said they were all bound to be safe. She suspected that he might have some doubts, though, and be unwilling to face up to what might have happened in the transition to a Layton Effect world.

  She had prodded and prodded and reasoned in her cheerful but not-to-be-deterred way: “They’re my family, too, Loren. And I have so little family.” And so, he had finally agreed to go.

  In the dawn light before the Ardent’s morning departure, Loren pulled Kelly out of the bed and stood her sleepy and nude in front of the long mirror. He stared admiringly at her image wrapped in his arms. “A perfect human creature,” he said. “Perfect and exquisite and pretty and delicious and sexy, and most of all perfect.”

  She yawned. “Kind of flat,” she said.

  “Kelly! You’re perfect. You just don’t know anything.”

  “Could use a bit more up here, that’s all.”

  “No.”

  “A big lovely bosom…like Sonia.”

  “No. Changing something that is perfect makes it imperfect.”

  “I was always jealous of her, I suppose it was obvious. She was everything I ever wanted to be: learned and beautiful and graceful and intelligent and a marvelous actress, and then there was that knock-out figure. It didn’t seem fair. She had it all.”

  He turned her around and put his arms around her, began kissing her cheeks and forehead and eyelids, murmuring, “My Kelly, my only love. What is there to be that you are not for me? Lover, obsession, porny princess, and mother of my beautiful baby, leader of a great nation, symbol of everything we care about…”

  She looked at him gravely. “What are your sisters like, Loren?”

  “What?”

  “What are they like, as women?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned his eyes away. “You’ll meet them all one day, I guess.”

  “Will you bring one home for me, Loren. I mean, if it suits her…if it fits in with her life, and if she’d like to come. I feel they are my sisters, now, only I don’t know them. I could use a sister. Would you please, Loren?”

  “Sure, if one would like to come. I have my doubts, though. They’re probably all married off and fat old mothers.”

  She knew which one mattered most to him. “Will you bring me Chlotide? Will you ask her if she will come to meet me, Loren?”

  “Mm. I’m sure she won’t be able to come. But I’ll ask.”

  Edward had never been on one of the new larger battle pavilions. He was struck by the opulence of the Ardent’s guest quarters and the elegant finishing everywhere. From his cabin window on the upper deck, he could see the turbulent sea a few hundred feet below them. There was a slender chain of islands disappearing off to the horizon to the south. He supposed they were the Leewards. He wasn’t too sure of that, as he had never been this far east himself. In fact, he hadn’t been off Victoria for the last two years. The long gold and white Victorian banner was flying from a horizontal mast jutting out from the starboard side, just aft of his cabin. He watched now as the banner was struck, pulled into its housing from a control on the interior. The sun was low in the sky behind them, just touching the horizon. He could see his own face lit up by the setting sun, reflected in the mahogany brightwork of the window casing at his side.

  He turned back to the mirror to resume dressing. Part of the preparations for this trip had been the purchase of several new suits and dress shirts and shoes and cravats and even a hat. He couldn’t remember dressing up for anything since Kelly and Loren’s wedding. The new fancy clothes were not only for Paris and wherever they were headed in Spain, but for dinners on board, which were fairly formal, he had been informed.

  Dinner this first evening was to be a private affair in the Captain’s suite. Edward was fascinated to see what that would look like. Given that everything else was so pleasantly decorated, he supposed that the captain’s quarters would be sumptuous. On the way to Loren’s cabin, Edward descended the wide staircase into the main saloon, averting his eyes from the railed observation well in the middle of the area. He felt a little queasy seeing so much emptiness beneath him. There was a corridor leading aft from the saloon
with officers’ staterooms on both sides and the Captain’s suite at the end. He came up to a pair of white doors, closed, with two airmen on duty in front of them. One of the airmen was an airwoman. He nodded to them cordially, “Evening.”

  “Dr. Barodin,” said the man, “Good Evening, sir.”

  They sprang to swing back the two doors for his entrance. What opened up before him was a foyer with bookcases on both sides. A midshipman in dress uniform was hurrying forward to greet him. “Dr. Barodin,” he said. He led Edward down two steps into the main room, which occupied the whole rear of the vessel. There was a wrap-around wall of mullioned windows at the back. Edward could see a dim image of the islands receding behind them. The scale of the space was generous, the size of a living room in an expensive, luxury flat. There were a dozen people present. Loren waved from a grey divan where he was seated across from an elderly couple. The whole room was decorated in black and white and grey. The officers fit right in with their white dress uniforms. The midshipman took Edward around, completing the introductions.

  “Our physician, Doctor Bolen, whom you know, I believe.”

  “Steven.”

  “Hullo, Edward. I’m glad you’re with us. Don’t be sick, please, I think of this as a holiday. There are absolutely no children on board. I’m planning on sleeping most of the way to Paris.”

  The midshipman had two officers to present: “Dr. Barodin, this is Commander Myer, our second in command, and Lieutenant Bentenyev.”

  Edward shook hands with the Commander and turned to Lieutenant Bentenyev, a woman nearly as tall as himself with almost white blond hair and light blue eyes. She was not in uniform, but dressed in evening clothes. She smiled rather impishly at him. He bowed slightly and shook her hand with a firm, businesslike grip. “Lieutenant.”

  “Rita.”

  “Um, Edward.”

  “I know. This is Oliver Myer,” she presented her fellow officer again. Then she turned back to Edward. “There is a rumor running through the Ardent, Dr. Barodin, that you are planning to visit the Belle Epoch architecture around Trocadero with the intention of copying or adapting some of the facades for the University.” She smiled slightly through her words. The lieutenant had perfect teeth and a dazzlingly pretty smile. She leaned forward slightly and put one hand on his arm. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to take along an interested amateur, would you? I mean if she carried your sketch pads, or whatever.” Edward had never until that moment considered the possibility of a lieutenant smelling so nice.

  “Are you interested in architecture, Lieutenant?”

  “Oh, yes. At least the architecture of Paris. And of St. James.”

  “Well then, we’ll have to do that,” he said.

  She stayed by his side as he was presented to the other guests, including the French ambassador and his wife who were returning home for a visit. When he found his place at the dinner table, Lt. Bentenyev’s name card was next to his.

  During the course of the dinner, Loren managed to drop that he had a good deal of respect for his young lieutenant’s judgment and command, and Edward understood that he was probably being set up again. What must his friend think of him after all these years without a woman? Probably that he was gay or asexual, neither of which was true. If that was what Loren was guessing, then the pretty lieutenant in her blue chiffon gown was going to be an acid test. She had a deep sexy laugh that made one shiver and then want to say something to make her laugh again. Edward could feel himself smiling foolishly, already half under her spell. By the end of the meal, he had learned that she was part Russian and part Finnish, that she had studied fine arts at Yale and that she was unattached. These were things she told him directly. The indirect message was stronger, if more subtly presented. It hung in the air between them along with her scent.

  At the end of the evening, Rita accompanied him back as far as the main saloon before returning down the officers’ corridor toward her own cabin. As he said his goodnight, Edward was concentrating on keeping his gaze away from the observation port, which he found even more disturbing at night. He trotted up the stairs, eyes straight ahead. But afterwards, his thoughts returned to her as he undressed and washed his teeth. What a delicious creature she was. He hoped she would speedily find the lucky man who would be everything she could wish.

  After four days in Paris, the Ardent sailed by night out past the Finnesterre and over the open Atlantic to turn south and run down into the Bay of Biscay. By dawn, they were over the Portuguese town of Oporto. Just beyond it was the mouth of the Douro. Loren gave instructions to the coxswain to follow the river valley almost due east into the interior. The June winds were flukey over the warm land and sometimes almost dead ahead. There were probably better and more favorable breezes up higher, but it would take them forever to work up to higher altitudes at their present rate of movement. Loren was content to drift along over the valley at whatever speed they could make. He took his breakfast in the control room forward. By mid-morning they had crossed into Spain and picked up the river Tormes.

  Edward came in to be with him as they approached his home. The yellow walls of Salamanca were visible up to windward. Loren pointed out the city to him.

  “Just tell me I’m not going to have to eat octopus, Loren.”

  “You’re going to eat it and beg for more. Octopus in its own ink…”

  “Yech.”

  “…made by my sister, Celuza. She is very proud of her pulpo in su tinta. You, of course, will be unwilling to hurt her feelings in any way because she is lovely and sensitive and vulnerable, so you will have seconds, maybe even thirds.”

  “Oh dear. You’re probably right.”

  “And my aunt makes angullas, tiny little eels sauteed in oil and garlic. They’re sizzling in the dish when you eat them and it’s almost as though they were still wiggling.”

  “Burp.”

  He felt Loren’s hand suddenly gripping his arm. “Oh, Edward, there it is.” Loren was pointing down to a white stucco building on the river’s edge.

  “What a lovely spot. It’s just the way you said…” He noticed that Loren was pale. Edward put an arm around his shoulder. “They’ll be OK, Loren. Every single one of them.”

  “Sure.”

  Loren indicated the red hills that rose up behind the village, and the Ardent slanted down into them, back winding to lose way. She stopped about thirty feet above ground. Loren and Edward stepped with their bags into the electric lift to be lowered the final distance to the ground. As they stepped off the lift platform, they could see children and dogs rushing up the hill toward them, with some worried adults not too far behind. Before the welcoming/challenging delegation had arrived, the lift had been pulled up and the Ardent was beating across the wind back into the center of the valley. She would lose herself above the hill country for the rest of the day and then make the last two hundred miles down to Madrid under cover of darkness. Loren had given instructions for a small Spanish speaking group to be put down near Madrid to find out what was going on there. The Ardent would be back in Alba with her scouts retrieved in precisely seven days.

  The children kept their distance until the adults caught up. Then they approached in a group. Edward’s Spanish was rusty, but the first words he heard he did manage to translate as “It’s the Martine boy, up to mischief as usual.” The speaker was an old woman in a brown shawl and head scarf. Loren reached out to take her hand and kissed the back of it.

  “Tia Juana, as healthy as when I was a boy, and no thinner.”

  She squeezed his cheek with her free hand.

  “My sisters, Juana…?”

  “All in good health and good spirits, no thanks to their good-for-nothing brother. And who is this tall fellow with hair as long as a girl’s?”

  “My friend, Eduardo. This is Señora Iguarda, Edward. She was paymaster for my uncle’s mill,” all in Spanish.

  Edward was feeling dazed, wondering which bag he had packed his dictionary in. The Señora offered hi
m her hand, and he bent low over it as he had seen Loren do, wondering if he was supposed to actually kiss the backs of her fingers or merely brush his lips against them; whichever was correct, the other was undoubtedly gauche. He kissed her hand with an audible smack. The woman didn’t seem to take it amiss.

  Because they had bags to carry, they proceeded slowly down toward the village. Some of the children ran ahead with the news of their arrival, with the news that it was Loren Martine, come home in a flying ship with silver sails. As they neared the walls Edward caught sight of a young woman with black hair, running full tilt toward them. Her open white smock was streaming behind her. She ran hard, not even shortening her stride on the hill. By his side, he saw Loren drop his two cases to the ground. The woman launched herself from a good six feet away into Loren’s arms. She nearly toppled him over. She kissed him hard on the mouth and all about his face, just saying over and over, Lorentino, Lorentino. When Loren finally lowered her to the ground, he couldn’t find his voice. She turned to Edward, brushing a long smear of tears from one cheek and held her hand out to him with a smile, announcing in proper English, “I am Chlotide.”

  “I think I knew that,” Edward said, taking her hand. She grinned at him, her other arm still around Loren. “It is a great pleasure…” he began. Then he stopped, struck by the resemblance. She looked so much like Sonia they could have been twins: the dark coloring, the fine features, the figure, the approximate height. She even had her hair flipped back behind the ear and at about the same length as Sonia’s was the last time he had seen her. Loren, aware of what his friend was thinking, looked determinedly away. Only the expression was different. Chlotide’s face was full of sensuality, of merriment, it was unlike any expression Sonia had ever worn. Her full lips were smiling, comfortably happy in contrast to Sonia’s almost perpetual reserve. “…to be here,” he finished.