Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “You may not like it, Captain—I don’t much like it either—but she can go there without raising any suspicion,” the Admiral said. “She is in a private ship, civilian captain, on a pleasure jaunt as far as anybody will be able to tell.”

  “Is the captain trustworthy?” Folkestone asked, recognizing at last this was not an argument he had a chance of winning.

  “Yes, it’s that fellow the three of you met on Venus, the name escapes me at the moment,” the Admiral said.

  “Wax?” Folkestone suggested. “Captain Josiah Wax?”

  “Yes, that’s the man,” the Admiral said with a nod. “Cynthia seemed to have full confidence in him.”

  “He’s a good man.”

  Sergeant Hand half closed his eyes and felt a little queasy as memories flooded back to him. If he had realized just how turbulent the upper atmosphere of Venus was, he would have never accepted Captain Wax’s invitation to join him on the bridge of the Princess of Mars upon departure.

  “Princess of Mars, you say,” Admiral Barrington-Welles said. “That’s a daft name for a ship.”

  Hand looked up sharply, then realized the Lord Admiral had responded to a comment from Folkestone.

  “That it is, sir,” Folkestone agreed, “but there is an interesting story behind it.”

  “Another time, Captain,” the Admiral said. “Tell me about the two blighters you’re trying to run to ground. Any luck?”

  Folkestone shook his head. “None so far. By what they called each other, their names seem to be Tanaka and Zimmer, but we have no record of them entering via the Syrtis Major aetherport or from any of the other settlements.”

  “Smuggled,” the Admiral muttered.

  “It may be the case, and Baphor-Ta is following up that aspect with the smugglers he has pulled in,” Folkestone said.

  “Well done on that,” the Admiral commented. “Thoroughly smashed that racket, from what I gather.”

  “Broken it to pieces at least, Admiral,” Hand said. “Some of the blighters got away before the net was thrown, but even they won’t be around Syrtis Major anytime soon.”

  “One of the best things that’s come out of this, at least from the local point of view,” Folkestone added, “is that Phylus-Zant’s relic smuggling business is out of business.”

  “Ah, yes, that reminds me,” the Admiral said, crossing to his desk. “You two are to report to the Court of the Red Prince this afternoon at seventeen hundred.” He picked up two parchment scrolls, glanced at each and handed them to the two men. “The Red Prince wants to dine with you, thank you personally.”

  “Crikey!” Hand exclaimed. “Nobody meets the Red Prince.”

  “Well, you two will.”

  “But he’s a Lowlander, and I’m a Highlander.”

  “All the Princes are Lowlanders,” the Admiral pointed out. “As far as you, well, just do your best, lad.”

  “Will Baphor-Ta be there?” Folkestone asked.

  The Admiral shook his head. “He arrested all the smugglers in the city, tracked down all the local contacts who were bringing in the relics, coordinated security and Temple forces in raids on the outlying villages, and worked with the Admiralty and the other Courts to secure the ancient sites where the relics were being stolen.” The old man smiled devilishly. “But he gave full and total credit to you two.”

  “Blighter!” Folkestone snapped with a faint smile.

  “Caloth!” Hand snarled, with no smile at all.

  “Well, you’ll just have to make the best of it, I’m afraid,” the Admiral said. “Nothing to do about it but smile and use your best table manners.” He raised an eyebrow at Sergeant Hand. “Besides, Her Majesty’s Government looks upon this as an opportunity to strengthen even further our ties with the Martians.”

  “I don’t suppose we can…” Hand started to say.

  “Not a chance, Sergeant,” the Admiral interrupted. “You two are well and fully trapped. If you don’t appear at the Court at the appointed hour, you had better be dead.” He paused. “And try not to let that happen.”

  “Yes, sir,” Folkestone said. “But I doubt we need worry about Zimmer or Tanaka having another go at us. If they are not out of Syrtis Major already, they are holed up somewhere dark and dismal, just waiting for a chance to escape.”

  “Plenty of places to hide in Syrtis Major,” Hand pointed out.

  “There is that,” the Admiral agreed. “Now if you gentlemen will excuse me.”

  Folkestone wavered, and Hand started for the chair he had been sitting in until the Admiral entered his office. The Admiral glared at them both.

  “Is there something else?” the Admiral asked.

  “Sir, about Lady Cynthia…”

  “My daughter can take care of herself, as she never ceases to remind me,” the Admiral replied. “Besides, she is under orders, just as I am, and you are.”

  Folkestone wanted to know what those orders were and who was giving them, but, from long association with the elusive and annoying Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles, he knew better than to give voice to his doubts and concerns. Finally he nodded and moved toward the door.

  “Is there something else, Sergeant Hand?”

  “No, sir.” He glanced covertly at the chair, then moved to join Captain Folkestone. “Nothing, sir.”

  “Then be off with you,” the Admiral said. “The Foreign Office, the Home Secretary, and the Chief of Staff—not to mention those cads at Section 6—have sent me a mountain of secret information to wade through. Leave me to it, and I’ll let you know if anything is pertinent to the situation on Mars.”

  “Or in the Asteroid Belt?” Folkestone prompted cautiously.

  “Yes, that too,” the Admiral said. “Be off! You too, Sergeant Hand.” He called after them: “And watch your backs, lads.”

  The door closed and Admiral Barrington-Welles sighed. They were good men, the best under his command when it came to unraveling the Gordian Knots of life, but they gave him almost as many headaches and bouts of indigestion as did his daughter.

  Reluctantly he turned toward his desk and the small mountain of documents that had rolled out of the aether-printers over the past several hours. Normally it was work he would have delegated to the Machine Analysts assigned to the Admiralty, but Section 6 wanted as few eyes as possible to see the documents, and what Section 6 wanted, Section 6 usually got. A lot of tommyrot, he thought. There may be moles in the government on Earth, but the idea there were traitors in the Admiralty, agents of MEDUSA, was impossible.

  As he neared his desk, a flash of white caught his attention, the corner of something sticking from under the cushion of the chair in which Sergeant Hand had waited for him. Frowning, he grasped the extending corner and pulled. He looked at the magazine, then at the door. At least that was one mystery of the Admiralty solved.

  He flipped through the magazine. Nicodemus Legend? Solitary Knight of the High Plains? Blood on Texas Sands? What utter rubbish! He started to toss it into the waste bin, then paused. Perhaps it was not fair to dismiss it out of hand. The Admiral locked his door, put his feet on his desk, and started to read.

  He smiled.

  * * *

  “An orange squash,” Captain Wax said.

  Lady Cynthia looked at him askance when the drink was set before the aethership captain.

  “The Port Master was an old salt who became a space hound,” Wax explained. “We had much in common, and he enjoyed greatly the bottle of segir I brought along. Not much of it makes it out to the Belt.”

  “He enjoyed it, Captain?”

  “No man likes to drink alone,” Wax said. “Nor should he.”

  “Did you satisfy his curiosity?”

  “I did indeed, M’Lady,” Wax replied, grinning. “And I have his condolences for being saddled with such a ‘daft young thing,’ as he put it. No offense intended, M’Lady.”

  “None taken, Captain,” Lady Cynthia said. “Well done.”

  “Thank you, M’Lady, but the Port Mast
er was an easy craft to steer, if you get my intent,” he explained. “Lonely man in a lonely corner of the Solar System. A bottle of segir, some tall tales, bonhomie, and hail fellow well met—goes a long way out here.”

  “I doubt ‘daft young thing’ begins to cover what Mr Nyles thinks of me, and I am having a G and T, actually this is my second one.” She laughed. “I was quite odious to the man, and, yet, he still tolerated me more than I would have. Very curious. Too curious, perhaps. Seemed quite irritated when I would not provide any kind of an itinerary. It’s not required, of course, but he cast it in terms of a safety measure, just in case my father contacted him.” She paused. “He kept returning to the subject of my father. Did not seem quite convinced I was jaunting on my own.”

  “Does he suspect anything?”

  “No, I think not,” she replied. “After he had butted his head against a brick wall a half-dozen times, he was happy to send me on my way and be rid of me.”

  “Do you suspect him?”

  She frowned. “Now that is a good question. He may be nothing more than an officious busybody. He probably knows he will never rise above this posting, so it is understandable he throws his weight around and enjoys playing the bully-boy, pushing people about and increasing his stature, at least in his own eyes, by involving himself with his betters. Sad and pathetic little man. And yet…” She frowned. “The sooner we can resupply and depart Ceres Station, the better.” She sipped at her gin and tonic. “Now, about Dollard.”

  They were in Poseidon’s Cave, a whimsical pub on one of the lowest levels of Ceres, not far from the ice-choked ocean at the heart of the asteroid. It was the brain-fever of a prospector named Socrates Jones, who struck it rich with an asteroid of nearly pure platinum, who then spent all his money on something that would endure long after he was gone. The result was Poseidon’s Cave, with a motif that made it seem more a treasure-filled grotto than anyone’s idea of a local pub. It was a popular place, and anyone who passed through Ceres eventually had a drink or three here.

  “He’s behind me, to your right,” Wax replied, sipping his drink and looking straight ahead. “Chap in the leather coat and the derby with goggles on it; pearl-handled revolvers.”

  “Yes, I see him,” she confirmed. “Looks a bit disreputable.”

  “Well, he is from Texas,” Wax explained. “But you will not find a man who knows more about the Belt in general than Dollard. He’s prospected from one end to the other, found and lost more fortunes in the last decade than a hundred men in a lifetime. If there is anyone likely to know anything about Pandora, it is he.”

  “By all means, then, let us make his acquaintance,” she said, picking up her drink.

  Lady Cynthia and Captain Wax moved unobtrusively from their own secluded table to Dollard’s even more out-of-the-way table. It was by a porthole set in the rocky wall. He was staring at some of Ceres’ fish and crustaceans beyond the glass when they approached, and continued to stare as they stood by.

  “Mind if we join you, Mr Dollard?” Lady Cynthia asked.

  He contemplated the watery citizens of Ceres’ inner ocean.

  “Her Ladyship asked you a question, Dollard,” Wax said.

  The man from the Republic of Texas lazily swung his head to look at the newcomers. “As a matter of fact, I do mind.”

  Lady Cynthia slid onto the bench across the table from him. After a moment, Captain Wax joined her.

  “I knew Brits were bullies,” Dollard said in a languid drawl, “but I didn’t take you folks for being rude to boot. Thought you were high tea, extended pinky finger, and all that.”

  “Mind your tongue, young…”

  “I don’t know you, so how do you know me?” he asked Wax. Then he turned his attention to Lady Cynthia. “Of course, I would not mind none getting to know a pretty filly like you, little lady.”

  Wax started to bluster at the Texan’s effrontery, but he was motioned to silence by Lady Cynthia. She smiled sweetly and leaned across the table.

  “May I buy you a drink, Mr Dollard?” she asked. “I understand you are between fortunes and could do with a little charity from anyone, even a rude bully of a Brit.”

  Dollard’s eyes blackened and his face flushed. He glared at the duo across from him, seemingly on the verge of drawing one of his pearl-handled revolvers. Then his face cleared, he grinned the toothiest of grins, and uttered a soft chuckle.

  “I like you, lady,” Dollard said.

  “M’Lady,” Wax corrected automatically, but was ignored.

  “I am Cynthia Barrington-Welles, and this is Captain Josiah Wax, master of the Princess of Mars,” she said.

  “That’s a loony-bird name for an aethership,” Dollard muttered, but was ignored.

  “I’ve commissioned Captain Wax to take me through the Belt, to see the sights as it were,” Lady Cynthia continued.

  “Sights?”

  “What we need, though, is a guide, or pilot,” she explained, “a veteran navigator who knows his way…”

  “Barrington-Welles?” Dollard interrupted. “Did you say your name was Barrington-Welles?”

  “Yes, Cynthia Bar…”

  “Barrington-Welles, as in the First Space Lord?” Dollard’s face no longer expressed any amusement. “Same Admiral Barrington-Welles who signed the impound order on my ship at the Syrtis Major aetherport when there was a slight, uh, irregularity in my cargo manifest? That Barrington-Welles?”

  “Well, my father is the First Space Lord,” Lady Cynthia said. “And he does sign lots of papers, some of which are impoundments. I suppose you could have crossed paths with him once.”

  “Once?” Dollard laughed. “That was just the beginning of…”

  “Mr Dollard, please,” Lady Cynthia interrupted, holding up the palm of her hand. “I am not my father, and he is not here. I do what I want to do, and what I want to do is go on an excursion through the Asteroid Belt, and I’m willing to pay, and pay well, for a man who knows his way around.”

  “Well, that would be me,” Dollard admitted. “No one has been to more worthless rocks, and a few not so worthless, than me. And you were right when you say I was between fortunes. Truth is, I could rightly use a grubstake to get me off Ceres and back out on the hunt.”

  Lady Cynthia beamed him a smile. “Seems like we are in a position to help each other.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Dollard said doubtfully. “I’ve had some run-ins with the First Space…with your father, but, to tell you the truth, I doubt he really knows my name from any other.” He paused to down his drink. “But he’d sure as shooting know my name if anything happened to his little girl while I was…”

  “Mr Dollard,” Lady Cynthia snapped. “I am a grown woman and I do not answer to…”

  “Believe me, lady, when it comes to fathers, daughters never stop being their little girls,” he said. “I’ve had enough close shaves, from Mercury to Titan to know that much.”

  “How much is needed for…what did you call it…a grubstake?” she asked.

  “A thousand gold pesos would do nicely,” he answered. “In pound-sterling that equals, approximately…”

  “I’ll double it,” she said softly.

  “You bought yourself a guide, M’Lady,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “When do we leave?”

  “In three hours,” she replied.

  “You’re sure in a big hurry to see a lot of nothing.”

  “Perhaps nothing,” she said. “Perhaps not. What do you know about Pandora?”

  He looked at her slant-eyed. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Lady Cynthia asked you a question, Mr Dollard,” Wax said, though without any note of rancor. “Now that you are on her payroll it’s for the best that you do your job, and do it well.”

  “I haven’t inked the line yet and I haven’t seen any gold,” the man from Texas pointed out. “Until then I don’t…”

  Dollard fell silent as Lady Cynthia pulled a voucher book and a pen from her bag. She scr
awled across the parchment, tore the slip from the book and passed it to Dollard. The amount indicated was double the amount she had previously doubled. And it was a Bank of England voucher.

  “I hope that settles any issues remaining,” she said.

  He nodded dumbly, his mouth agape, his eyes fixed on the document.

  “Well, Mr Dollard?”

  He continued to stare at the bank voucher.

  “Pandora,” Lady Cynthia prompted.

  Dollard glanced up at her, then looked back to the voucher. He could mount a half-dozen long term expeditions with the money he was being offered, not to mention paying all the arrears charges on his own ship. Once he returned from this job, he could get away from Ceres for a good long while. If he returned, he reminded himself. Finally, after what seemed a long time, though it was only a few seconds, he folded the valuable document and put it away.

  “You’re going to Pandora?”

  She smiled. “One of several places. I picked the name because it sounded quaint.”

  “You know who Pandora was?”

  Lady Cynthia nodded.

  “Someone gave that chunk of rock a very appropriate name,” Dollard said. “Ships that get too close to Pandora develop a bad case of the troubles. Some don’t make it back. Ones that do, they have scorch marks.”

  “They were attacked?” Captain Wax asked. “I thought piracy was more or less under control.”

  “I never mentioned pirates, Captain, and neither do the crews of the ships that make it back,” Dollard said. “Sometimes they talk of flames from nowhere and space lightning, but mostly they don’t talk about anything at all. Hasn’t been anyone out that way for a long time, and for good reason.”

  “Has it been reported?” Lady Cynthia asked.

  “Everyone in Port Ceres knows something is going on there, but no one acknowledges it formally,” Dollard explained. “Even the caporal in charge, Nyles, knows, but I’d wager he’s filed nothing.”

  “It does sound like an interesting place.”

  “If you’re still going to Pandora after what I told you, then you’re plumb loco.”

  “You could return the voucher to me,” Lady Cynthia offered.