by K. G. McAbee
Space: 1889 & Beyond—Vandals on Venus
By K.G. McAbee
Copyright 2011 by K.G. McAbee
Space: 1889 © & ™ Frank Chadwick 1988, 2011
Cover & Logo Design © Steve Upham and Untreed Reads Publishing,
2011
Cover Art © David Burson and Untreed Reads Publishing, 2011
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Other Titles in the Space: 1889 & Beyond Series
Journey to the Heart of Luna
The Ghosts of Mercury
Abattoir in the Aether
A Prince of Mars
Dark Side of Luna
http://www.untreedreads.com
SPACE: 1889 & BEYOND
“VANDALS ON VENUS”
By K.G. MCABEE
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Nearing Venus
Chapter 2: Oberst Hans Kurt’s Office
Chapter 3: Fort Collingwood, Venus
Chapter 4: Neuregensburg, a Small German Settlement
Chapter 5: Aboard the Aeronaut III
Chapter 6: Command Post, Fort David
Chapter 7: Fort David Township
Chapter 8: Thorne’s Emporium
Chapter 9: The German Zeppelin Rheingold
Chapter 10: Somewhere on the Lower Escarpment
Chapter 11: Aboard the Zeppelin Rheingold
Chapter 12: Trapped!
Chapter 13: High in the Clouds of Venus
Chapter 14: Early Morning
Chapter 15: After Breakfast on the Rheingold
Chapter 16: Frying Pan and Fire
Chapter 17: Massacre!
Chapter 18: Plans and Supplies
Chapter 19: A Dastardly Attack by the British!
Chapter 20: Acrobatic Ability
Chapter 21: The Truth, At Last
Epilogue
Prologue
Commissioner’s House
Chatham Dockyards, Kent
“MORE TEA, Professor Stone? Another cucumber sandwich?” Mrs White held up the silver teapot invitingly. Her abundant auburn hair was piled atop her head, and her pale linen dress looked cool on such a warm day. Her husband, William, lounged in a wicker bath chair under a nearby shady willow and snored unashamedly. As director of Chatham Dockyards, largest of Her Majesty’s Naval and Aeronautical Construction Yards, William Henry White had little enough time for rest. A sleepy Sunday afternoon in May with his wife in charge of the hospitality, offered him an irresistible opportunity to which he had, after much struggle, succumbed.
Nathanial Stone smiled at Mrs White, passed his empty cup and plate, and sighed with pleasure.
He looked around him in delight.
It was a lovely early spring day; the sun struck glittering sparks from the slow-flowing River Medway in the distance. Stone sat in a similar comfortable wicker chair near the conservatory, an elegant structure behind Commissioner’s House, current residence of the Whites. Beyond him stretched the lower lawns of the Italianate gardens, and in the distance, he could hear laughter and murmurs of admiration, interrupted by the occasional thwock of an arrow hitting a target. Annabelle Somerset was just visible past the branches of the vast mulberry tree, which dated, according to legend, back to Cromwell’s time. She was surrounded by a trio of engineers and a pair of lowly midshipmen, though the target they were taking turns shooting at was invisible from his position.
No doubt, Nathanial thought with some irritation, Annabelle was hitting the bull’s eye at every shot. As if she were not insufferable enough already. Now she would have adoring Royal Navy midshipmen coming to call on her at Commissioner’s House. The officers of the Dockyard were bad enough, surely, flocking around her every time she took the air with Mrs White.
Nathanial sighed again, this time in resignation.
“I believe you take sugar and lemon, Professor Stone?”
Nathanial tore his attention from the distance and focused on his hostess. “I do indeed. And I must offer you my most fervent thanks, my dear Mrs White. Annabelle seems to be enjoying her stay,” he ventured as he took his full cup and plate, setting them both on the tiny table at his side. “I feel I really must apologise for her little escapade the other night, however. I have no idea what got into the girl, leaving like that without even telling any of us where she had gone. And to be found at last in a low public house, surrounded by sailors! My mother would have never allowed such a thing in a child of hers, you may be sure of that. But Annabelle is, well, rather different, I must admit. Her upbringing…leaves something to be desired.”
“Please!” Mrs White smiled at him. “Do let us say no more about it; nothing horrible happened, after all. It was hardly a low public house indeed. Really more of a friendly local pub. She simply wished a bit of…freedom, no more than that. And Miss Annabelle is a dear girl, even if she is a little…enthusiastic. Truly, I am quite glad to have her with me. Besides, I am sure she needs a bit of fun after your most frightful time on Luna. I am so glad she is comfortable here. Her life, poor dear, from all that you have told me, has been far from happy. Imagine losing her dear parents in America, and then ending up captured on Luna by Russians! They can be hardly less savage than the Red Indians, I feel sure.” She shook her head in obvious dismay. “I am glad she has such a gallant protector as yourself.” Mrs White reached out and tapped her husband on his arm. “William, my dear, would you like more tea?”
William White woke instantly, his brilliant mind alert at once. “Yes, my dear, and some of that sponge cake of yours, if you please. Professor, have you tried my wife’s lemon sponge?”
Nathanial swallowed tea. “I have indeed, White. You are a lucky man, to be surrounded by such beauty,” he motioned towards the gardens, “and such a beauty,” he bowed at Mrs White.
“Professor Stone, you are a charmer,” she said, her face flushing with pleasure. “But save your compliments for Miss Annabelle, please.”
“Dearest, you are embarrassing the professor,” her husband admonished, though he laughed.
Nathanial could feel the red heat rising in his face. He looked away in discomfort. Deuce take Annabelle! And the Devil take her uncle, Doctor Cyrus Grant, for saddling him with the girl’s safety. What was he to do with her? He could not impose on the Whites much longer, as kind as they were. He had his own work to get on with.
“William?” asked Mrs White. “Is that not a gentleman from the docks coming across the lawns? Really!” She stamped her foot in anger. “It is too bad, to disturb you on your one day of rest this month.”
A young man was not coming across the lawns; he was standing at the corner of the house, looking lost.
White glanced in his direction. “Not from the docks, my dear. See his uniform? He is from the Royal Heliograph and Telegraphy Service. A message, no doubt, for me, or a letter. Or perhaps for you, Professor? Would you mind calling the fellow over? He appears a bit lost.”
Nathanial rose. “I shall fe
tch him. It may well be important.” Though Nathanial Stone was a brilliant inventor and spent a great deal of time bent over a desk, he had a tall, lean and athletic appearance and was in excellent health. He ran up the mossy stone steps and beckoned the messenger, who trotted forward with an expression of relief on his snub-nosed freckled face.
“Might you be Mister Stone, sir?” he called when Nathanial was still some yards away. “A message came in for you, sir, from Venus.”
“Venus, did you say?” Nathanial took the flimsy paper, gummed in half for privacy. Who on Earth—he shook his head and smiled—who on Venus, rather, could the message be from?
He tossed the messenger a shilling. The boy touched one finger to his round blue cap, turned and dashed away towards a three-wheeled steam velocipede. The boy settled himself in the harness between the two huge front wheels and, assisted by the bubbling engine, sped away at quite seven miles an hour, Stone calculated.
Nathanial walked slowly back towards his host, the bit of paper still unfolded in his hand. The address on the front told him little. Fort Collingwood, Her Majesty’s Royal Colony, Venus.
“Something urgent, my dear Stone?” asked White when Nathanial had settled back in his chair.
“I am not quite sure. If you will forgive me, I suppose I should read it.”
White waved his hand. “Naturally. Duty waits for no man.”
Mrs White rose. “I think I’ll just walk down and see if Miss Annabelle and her admirers have worked up a thirst. Do touch the bell for more hot water, William.” She drifted politely away, her long white skirts trailing behind her.
“Well, go on, Professor!” White sat up straight in his chair, all signs of sleepiness gone. “Let us see what is important enough to send a message all the way across the void from Venus!” He sighed. “I have always wanted to visit the colonies there. Imagine the place. Steamy jungles full of huge carnivorous reptiles, while the colonists huddle inside their palisades as the beasts roar for their blood.”
“You have been reading penny dreadfuls, my dear William!” Nathanial laughed.
“I confess it, Professor.” White had the grace to look abashed. “Do not tell my wife, I pray. I already have to hide them in my desk drawers. Oh, not that she disapproves! I have to hide them to keep her from spiriting them away before I have done with them.”
Nathanial threw his head back and laughed at his friend and, at last, ripped open the bit of flimsy and began to read:
21 April 1889, Fort Collingwood, Her Majesty’s colony on Venus
My Dear Stone,
I am sure you have not forgotten our glorious school days together. I excelling in cricket and squash, whilst you swotted away at your books. What is it, ten years since we met? No, longer than that, surely. I shall forego the usual adage re flying time and simply say how immensely proud I am of your great accomplishments in the years since I’ve seen you. Co-inventor of the aether propeller governor! Even on Venus, we have heard of its wonders!
Yes, Venus, my dear chap. I passed—we shall not discuss precise rankings, if you please!—my civil service examinations and have been assigned to this damply dangerous—dangerously damp?—planet. At first, one must admit, I simply pushed a pen, but now I’ve managed to get my hands on a rather plush position, a sort of attaché without portfolio, if you will.
I am first assistant—well, let me be quite honest, my dear chap; I am the only assistant—to Geoffrey Forbes-Hamilton, esquire, if you please. I know you recognise the name; all you brilliant engineering johnnies belong to the same clubs and speak the same lingo. I confess, my talents, such as they are, are not the reason I received this particular assignment. It is more along the lines of no one else can stand the bounder. Not one of nature’s gentlemen, shall we say? In fact, I have heard it rumoured that his grandpapa was in trade! But be that as it may: the man is brilliant and H.M.’s government wants him coddled, which is, for my sins, my current job.
You are no doubt wondering, in that perspicacious way which is yours alone, precisely why I am rambling on this way—not to mention, why I’ve dared get in touch with you after all these years. I realise we did not part as the best of chums. Water under London Bridge and all that is how I feel about our little contretemps, and I can only pray you feel the same.
For I need your kind assistance, and in the worst possible way. Allow me to explain in more detail. Forbes-Hamilton has a passion for airships, don’t you see, which is the reason he’s on Venus in the first place. He says he’s untrammeled by inquisitive interlopers here. He is determined to build a new kind of airship which will surpass in every way those the dear old Kaiser’s people have designed. Naturally, our own chaps wish to see that happen as fiercely as does F-H Esquire.
And therein lies the rub, and the reason for this endless scrawl of mine—one of the benefits of working for H.M.’s service, don’t you know: I have no need to be stingy with my words when I can drop a missive into the governor-general’s official pouch!
Forbes-Hamilton has built—and lost—one prototype airship already; he called it the Aeronaut I. “Lost” as in “went down in flames,” don’t you know. Really, it was a most impressive sight, I do assure you! Aeronaut II ended up floating in a local lake and, though we both escaped from the wreckage with no more than scratches, by the time we managed to drag the remnants of the airship onto shore, the local aquatic fauna had chewed it about rather badly. It ended up resembling nothing so much as a badly mangled dog’s toy.
Now Aeronaut III is under construction upon the very bones of II. Dear old F-H refuses to discuss the “inadequacies” of I and II; he simply keeps repeating “she’ll be much better this time.” So much eye wash, in my opinion.
Well, to my point. (“At last!” I hear you exclaim across the aether.) If you could possibly see your way clear to barge off to Fort Collingwood here on Venus and offer your vast expertise to dear old F-H, you would not only be helping out a fellow brilliant engineer, but you would also be offering inestimable services to the government of that regal lady we are both so proud to serve—not to mention, saving the bacon of an old school chum. For, and I tell you this strictly sub rosa, my position as aide-cum-nanny for surly old F-H may will be my best—and last—shot at a decentish career.
Do say you’ll come, old chap. Quite honestly, I suspect some serious problems re III. Life or death, in fact. Do come!
Best regards,
Giles Percival Jericho
Nathanial looked up to find White’s eyes locked onto him.
“Well, Professor? You look a bit surprised. Something wrong?”
“Are you familiar, William, with,” Nathanial glanced back at the flimsy bit of paper, “a fellow called Geoffrey Forbes-Hamilton?”
White tented his fingers together; Nathanial could almost see the wheels turning in his friend’s brilliant mind.
“Ah, yes, now I remember the fellow.” White sat forward in his chair, his eyes bright, looking like an eager boy—though Nathanial was sadly aware of the lines of care and the many new white hairs visible in his beard. “Some rather striking new ideas in airship design. Went off to Venus to experiment ‘without a lot of official botherment,’ I believe he told someone. Thinks he can beat Herr Zeppelin at his own game, and bypass the use of liftwood at the same time. More power to him, I must say. Is that the chap you mean?”
Nathanial nodded and tossed him the letter. As White read it, Nathanial watched Mrs White coming towards them across the lawn, Annabelle beside her and the young men following respectfully behind, looking in their uniforms like a cadre of blue jays protecting two swans.
White rose and handed the message back to Nathanial. “I see. This is an opportunity not to be missed, Professor. If you can indeed assist Forbes-Hamilton, and his ideas are bearing fruit, it would be a definite coup for Her Majesty’s Navy. We shall have to see what we can do to get you passage to Fort Collingwood at once.”
“But my work here,” Nathanial said, waving his arms around in what
he felt must surely look a helpless manner.
White held up a hand. “Never mind about that now; we have quite enough with which to go on while you are gone. It is all construction and testing now, Professor, and you know how boring you find all the detail work. You are an inventor, my dear chap, and a damned good one! This is just the kind of thing you should be doing, instead of wandering around here doing busywork. Let me just call in some favours. We shall have you on Venus before you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle’.”
“Venus, did you say, Mister White?”
Oh no, Nathanial thought, his heart sinking to the top of his boots. Oh, dear God, no. Sadly, he did not appear to be listening to Stone at that precise moment.
Annabelle Somerset stood beside William White’s chair, her short, slim figure as upright as if she were at attention. Instead of slippers, as Mrs White wore, Annabelle wore sturdy boots—Annabelle always wore sturdy boots—clearly visible beneath unfashionably short skirts, which brushed their burnished tops.
Nathanial didn’t like the look in her eyes, and he cursed his luck again. Damn Doctor Grant!
“Nathanial?” Annabelle handed the bow she held to one of the gentlemen beside her. “You did say Venus, I believe?”
He had no choice; he had to tell her. “Yes. I have been called to Venus. I shall have to leave as quickly as can be arranged. Quite urgent, in fact. Cannot be helped. Uh, I am sure we can find you some pleasant place to stay while I am away.”
Annabelle slid the quiver of arrows off her shoulder and handed it behind her without looking to see if anyone took it; someone did, naturally. A midshipman, his face covered in red spots, clasped it to his bosom as if he’d been handed the flag.
Nathanial wished, as he often did, that Annabelle was not quite so…commanding. But this time, he was sure, she would listen to reason. She had to, after all; what other choice had she?
“Excellent,” said Annabelle Somerset, a determined look on her pretty face. “And don’t be a ninny, Nathanial. Of course I shan’t stay here; I shall go with you. I’ve always wanted to see Venus. Uncle Cyrus speaks often of it. When do we leave? I hope it won’t be too terribly soon, for I have quite a bit of shopping to do. After all, one cannot go to Venus without the proper gear.”
