The Gold Engine (The Gold Chronicles)

by D. Girard Watson

  Over the past few weeks, it had become clear to David that he was not Navy material. He didn't like the strictness of the rules, and fraternizing with the female sailors earned a flogging in front of the crew on the main deck. On this latter point, there hadn't been much opportunity, or, truth be told, any female sailors aboard that were worth a flogging. The closest was Lara Suarez, the third midshipman. David prided himself on being fairly charming, particularly when he'd been drinking, and he'd never had much trouble finding female companions. Lara was another story. On their first meeting, he had flirted with her, and she had eyed him with a cold, almost reptilian, distaste. Without saying much, she had made it clear that he was wasting his time.

  No, there was not much in the way of female companionship on board.

  "Ahoy there!" It was Harriet. She walked towards Tyrone and David, flashing an enormous smile, brushing the dreadlocks out of her sight.

  There was Harriet. She was certainly attractive, also in her early twenties, and certainly available, but, uncharacteristically, he did not want to ruin his friendship with her with an ill-considered romance. Rarely did he display this type of foresight, but times had changed. He was out of his element. Although their initial meeting had gotten off to a rocky start, things had quickly changed after they both learned of their mutual love of chess and of mathematics.

  David had been walking on the main deck, when he saw Harriet playing chess with a grizzled old hand. He had been surprised because any type of socialization between the hands and the officers was roundly discouraged. He had later learned that an exception had been made in this case, for the grizzled old man, Ichabod Gillespie, was an extraordinary chess player. So extraordinary, in fact, that Harriet had ignored protocol and had made it her mission to learn as much as she could from the man over the course of the tour. He was under strict orders never to let her win simply because she was his superior officer. She wanted to learn, and she made it clear that that wouldn't happen if he was going to try to kiss her ass. Ichabod knew her well enough by reputation to know that she was serious. They played almost every evening at around the same time. Although he had started off winning almost all of the games against her, over the course of the year that they had played, Harriet had turned the tables to the point that she was dominating almost every game.

  "Can I play?" David had asked when he saw Ichabod lay his king down in surrender.

  "Certainly," said Harriet, "but only if you're willing to put in a stake."

  David later learned that Harriet was an inveterate gambler. She loved games of chance, and she loved winning money even more. She was also extremely lucky.

  "Five dollars," said David. "I don't have it now, but I'm good for it next Saturday." That was when they got paid by the purser. David was broke and desperately needed money if he had any hope of surviving in New Boston when the professor got him out of the Navy. He wasn't terribly concerned about losing the game.

  She looked at him skeptically. "One typically doesn't gamble on credit outside of a casino."

  "I'm good for it," grinned David. "Plus, you know where I live."

  "Besides," chuckled Ichabod. "No one cheats an officer unless they like either flogging or scrubbing."

  "I don't like either," said David with a tone of mock seriousness.

  Ichabod got up, and gestured David toward his seat. "It'd be good to mix up strategy with someone new," he said.

  David sat down. The game was over in about ten minutes.

  "Double or nothing?" asked Harriet.

  David nodded happily. They played three more times, all with the same result.

  Harriet shook her head as she handed David the twenty dollars. "You're a shark."

  "I never pretended to be otherwise."

  "True," she looked thoughtful. "You'll be playing with me and Ichabod every day after the evening meal. I'll end this tour either broke or a master at chess."

  "Or both," grinned David.

  "Or both."

  "I'd be happy to play with you," he said.

  "You're acting like you have a choice," said Harriet. "That was an order. How did you learn to play like that? I'd like to think I'm pretty good."

  "I got a lot of games in with my mother."

  "Was she some sort of chess prodigy?"

  "No, just an Indian from Florida. There's not a lot to do out there in the swamps, so she spent a lot of time studying the game. She played with her grandfather, and basically forced me to play ever since I was a really little kid. We played until she passed away."

  "Well, I hope you teach me everything she knew."

  "Why would I do that? This looks like it might be a steady revenue stream."

  "You'll teach me by letting me see you play."

  And so he had. They played every evening in Harriet's small cabin. Even though they were both tired from working busy shifts all day, they made time to play. David started out with the upper hand, but after a few weeks, they were a bit more evenly matched though David still won the majority of games. They never played for money after that first game. It went unsaid, for they both loved the game, and took joy in sparring with each other over strong cups of coffee, dosed with whisky from Harriet's personal supply.

  It was during these evenings together that they grew to be great friends. Harriet was an affable companion, constantly smiling, and never discouraged. She had a "half-full" perspective on life that David usually found annoying, but since it was wedded to a wry since of humor, he found that he quite liked Harriet. The feeling appeared to be reciprocated.

  "Tell me, David," she asked during one of their games. "What did you do at the University?"

  "You can't distract me, Harriet," he said staring at the board. "I can carry on a conversation while still beating you."

  She laughed, "So much for my strategy. But even so, what sort of things were you doing?"

  "Our package was my advisor," he said, tilting his head towards the bow of the ship in the general direction of the Boggle. "We were working on a computational engine."

  "What kind of computations?"

  "Any kind! That's the beauty of it. It can reduce any formal system to a problem within its machine language."

  Harriet nodded. David would have done a better job of trying to explain, but his mind was taken up with defending against an attack by Harriet's bishop on his flank.

  "You mean it's Torrence complete."

  This got David's attention. He tore his gaze from the board. "You know what a Torrence complete engine is?"

  She laughed, "Only barely. I like to read Scientific American, and there was a recent article on advances in mathematics and computation. Mathematics is sort of a hobby of mine. I got into it when I was first learning navigation."

  She got up and rummaged through a chest, bringing out several volumes: Gillis' general survey of calculus, Cormac's book on linear algebra and geometry, and a book on logic by someone David had never heard of. He was impressed. These books were standard reference texts for advanced students in his department.

  "You clearly know more than just a little about mathematics."

  "Like, I said, it's a hobby. I'm most interested in applications to navigation, but I like reading about logic for fun."

  "Well then, I'm sure you'll appreciate the details of our engine." He spent the next hour talking about the machine, and how it worked, but she was most interested in his descriptions of the types of problems it had solved.

  "Amazing," she said. "Think of all the applications. If each American ship had an engine like yours, navigation would be trivial. Calibrating guns could be automated. Predicting travel times would become far easier."

  David nodded. "It could tilt the odds of winning this thing in our favor."

  "If only you had a machine that could save your position in this game," she laughed.

  "If only."

  She went on to beat him in a rare victory.

  They bonded over this love of math and chess during David's first few week
s aboard. He gave her some suggestions for books to pick up on both topics when they were next in port, and in their idle time, they would talk about problems in math, and potential applications for the Engine that might improve Navy life. David set romantic thoughts aside, and never tried to make a pass at her. He did not want to ruin this friendship, and so far, she was one of the few friends he had. She was like a big sister to him, so when she hailed them on the deck, he saluted and grinned. She'd been working on teaching him how to salute, but he never seemed to get it quite right. She could never figure out whether or not this was by design.

  By the time the officers arrived for the Captain's dinner, the Captain's servant had laid out the food. There was a honeyed ham, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, rolls, sweet potato pie, and they were promised a vanilla coconut cake for desert. David quickly understood why the Captain was pudgy around the midsection.

  At the table were David, Tyrone, Lara, and Harriet. It was a dinner for just the junior officers.

  Dinner at the captain's table was typically a pretty stiff affair. For most of a sailor's life, when it came to interacting with senior officers, it was his duty to speak only after having been spoken to. Although this tradition was proper in a Navy that ran on rules, respect, and regulations, it did not make for easy dinner conversation. The Captain's duty was to guide the conversation, draw his crew members out, and entertain his guests despite differences in rank.

  Luckily, Gibson was a man whose love of food was only surpassed by his love of talking. That eating and talking were mutually exclusive activities did not put him off, for he relished both. Most of the dinners consisted of Gibson telling bawdy tales from his youth in the Navy while the youngsters stuffed their faces with food.

  "Suarez, how have you liked working with McDaniels?" McDaniels was the ship's surgeon. His assistant, Tull, had died from an illness soon after they'd left Urbana. Lara had some experience as a medic in conflicts off of New Madrid, and she was currently working as the surgeon's mate.

  "It's been a great opportunity, sir." She said. "It's a real calling for me. I've always loved physic, and I've been fascinated with the human body ever since I was a child. Dr. Daniels has me doing splints and making poultices, but he's promised to show me how to use the saw once we get to New Madrid." She flashed a quick smile. The saw was for amputation.

  The tempo of table conversation skipped a beat as silence fell over the room. No one liked seeing, thinking, or even hearing about the saw. With the coming war, all were keenly aware that she would have ample opportunity to practice her skills, possibly on one of them.

  "We had an interesting case just this morning, sir..." she continued, much to the table's dismay, "All of you must have heard about the explosion in the engine room this morning. Why, David, you must have been there. Wilson, one of the hands working at the bellows, received a shrapnel wound to the groin. He was lucky. It could have been much worse, and he happened to be the only casualty. Extracting that piece of hot metal without losing the organ proved to be..."

  "Glad you're liking it Suarez!" said the Captain quickly. "Glad to hear it. A happy ship must have a good surgeon. The hands absolutely demand it."

  "Yes, sir." She said, clearly annoyed at not getting to tell her story.

  "How are you liking that port, Marr?"

  "Excellent, sir."

  "It is, isn't it. You know that port was grown in vineyards on New New York? It's from a small town called Altima near the equator on Joliet. Joliet's the big southern continent. You know, your father and I had an interesting adventure there back when we were midshipmen."

  "Really, sir?" David was actually interested. Despite the amazing tales of adventure associated with his father in newspapers, his father was pretty reticent about talking about naval life. Or maybe he had sensed that David didn't want to listen. He pushed that thought aside.

  The whole table leaned in a bit closer to hear the story, for although Captain Gibson frequently monopolized the conversation, he more than made up for it with the quality of his stories.

  "This was when you were a midshipman, sir?" asked Harriet.

  "Aye, Jack and I shared a berth with four other lads on the USS Sky." He looked at Harriet, "It was just boys then. There were no women at the time. I don't have to tell you that without the tempering influence of women on board, we were a rowdy lot.

  "There was a fat sailor named Gillette. God, I could never forget that one, the poor bugger. His family was French from down in Louisiana, and he claimed that he had five brothers. They were all part of a circus act. Acrobats I think. He was the only son that had gone into the Navy. None of us believed him, of course. He was the biggest liar I'd ever known, and could never get a handle on when he could and couldn't get away with it. He'd lie to his mother about his own birthday. Day in, day out, he'd tell outrageous stories about his brothers on the high wire, juggling, doing flips, that sort of thing. His lies eventually got bigger and bigger. He even claimed that he had toured with the circus for a while - that he could juggle, and do flips and breathe fire, but wouldn't on account of his bad back or the migraines the fire caused or whatever.

  "One day, Jack finally got sick of his lies and told that sorry son of a bitch that he was a goddamn liar and that if he didn't show everyone that he could eat fire then and there, Jack would knock a tooth out anytime he brought up the circus.

  "You should have seen the look on Gillette's face. He was outraged. In those days, if a man said something like that to you, you either had to call him out or you had to spend the rest of your days trying to look yourself in the mirror. There was no way Gillette was going to call out a fellow like Jack. Not a chance. But he knew that if he didn't, the other fellows would make the rest of his life on that tour a living hell. So that poor bastard did the only thing he could do: he swallowed fire.

  "I saw the look in his eye as he made the decision, and I tell you, there are different kinds of bravery in this world, and I'll be damned if there wasn't a soul in that midshipmen's berth who didn't respect him for what he was about to do. He called for a signal stick, some petrol, and a candle.

  "Well, we saw that look in his eye, and we knew what was coming, and we tried to stop him. 'Don't worry about it,' we said. 'Jack was just rousing you,' we said. But that boy was adamant. He was going to eat fire if it killed him. I was beginning to think we'd misjudged him.

  "He lit that signal stick and it lit up like lightening. He dipped his head back, shoved it in his mouth, and pulled it out. He did it. I can tell you, we were all shocked. That boy had a look of wonder on his face. He was shocked too. But then that shock twisted into something else. Pain. He start to howl and yell, and dropped the stick on one of the cots in the berth. He screamed for water.

  "At that point, we were already heading to get water, because the cot went up quick. By the time someone had gotten buckets, the whole berth was on fire. We fought the fire, but in half an hour, the entire ship was engulfed in flames. It was hotter than a whorehouse on nickel night. I'd never seen anything like it since. It was like being in Hell."

  The twinkle that had been his eye died out. He stared at his glass of wine, completely alone with his memory.

  "I'll tell you. I've been in combat, asteroid fields, and stranded in space, but there's nothing that even begins to compare to the terror of being on a ship that's on fire. There's nowhere to go, and there's nothing you can do but wait."

  Wait for death. They all knew that there were no lifeboats on interstellar ships. There really wasn't any point. The chances of finding a life boat floating in space, thousands of light years from a habitable planet were vanishingly small. It was better to have a quick ending. Far better. Aside from that, there was no way to get a gold engine on a small craft, so there was no artificial atmosphere and no means of propulsion.

  "As you can imagine, once it was clear that there was no hope, most of the hands on board decided to skip the wind." Skipping the wind was jumping from the ship. The gravity of the quan
tum field pulled the jumper down until they broke free and floated into space. The death was quick if not painless. It was far better than being burned alive.

  "I was just in shock. I hadn't a clue what to do. I didn't even have the foresight to think about skipping the wind and I would have been burned up right there if it hadn't been for your Daddy, David. He grabbed me, and forced me to the aft of the ship. We ran to the engine room. He wanted to head there. At the time, I didn't understand why.

  "I thought he was crazy. That burning hot engine room was the last place I wanted to be when the ship was on fire, but he knew what he was doing. At first I thought he wanted to get to the water in the Engine room to keep fighting the fire." They all knew that there were always tremendous amounts of water on hand in the engine room because of the frequent fires there.

  "I didn't have the heart to tell him we were finished. I was wrong. He went up to the furnace and turned the steam valve to the containment chamber. He shut off all power."

  He had his audience. They were shocked. Cutting off power to the gold rods disabled propulsion, but it also disabled the quantum field. The atmosphere would disappear, killing everyone on board.

  David nodded, understanding.

  "Brilliant," he said.

  Captain Gibson nodded, "It was."

  "Sir," blurted Tyrone. "What happened?"

  "The air from the quantum field was sucked out into space," continued the Captain. "The fire was extinguished because there was no oxygen. Now while he had the power off, it was no picnic for any of us who were still alive. It was colder than hell, and the absence of air pressure...well, it was no picnic, that's all I'll say." He shuddered. "He got that valve turned back on after a couple of seconds. Despite the pain of no atmosphere and the difficulty of maneuvering with no gravity, he got to the ignition switch, and got the flames to the engine going again. Once the atmosphere kicked back in, we knew we were going to live."

  The captain looked like he was going to cry, the joy of new found life burning bright in his eyes.