Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3)

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “Both all ahead flank!” Felix ordered. “Set diving planes to maximum.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Rachel responded. “Planes at maximum.”

  “What have we here?” Buckle shouted over the rumble of the engines and propellers.

  “We are cursed,” Felix shouted back. “I’ve never seen so many submarines in one place. We dodged three Founders boats before the fourth one spied us, we did. We’ll shake this one off in the Rift.”

  “You said you could outrun them,” Sabrina said, clambering in beside Buckle.

  “My edge in speed shan’t be much,” Felix replied. “And I cannot outrun torpedoes.” He turned to the woman with the beret and headgear. “Listen for those fish, Gustey.”

  “Be quiet, then,” Gustey replied, clamping her earphones tighter.

  “Is your sea craft capable of greater depths than that of the enemy?” Buckle asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Kishi said. “The Founders boats can submerge deeper than we can, though nowhere as quickly. We have the advantage in rate of descent and endurance, for they cannot remain down for long.”

  “How long?” Buckle asked.”

  “Forty minutes, perhaps fifty if they want to choke,” Felix said, snapping a pair of levers above his head. “Worry not, zeppelineer—we’ve dodged them before. Once we’re under the gloom we can find a place, a nook, to nestle and hide. The big Founders boats are coal pigs. They must soon return to the surface to exchange atmosphere and vent exhausts. We can stay down for six hours, perhaps six and a half if we risk it with masks. We can’t outgun him but we can outlast him. Once he surfaces we’ll finish our run to Atlantis.”

  Water erupted from the periscope housing, streaming down into the well. Buckle stared at it with apprehension.

  “Don’t mind that,” Kishi said with a smile.

  “Six degrees down to starboard,” Felix said, nudging his rudder wheel. The sheer, black face of the rift wall slipped past the windows. The sunlight was dissipating and being replaced by murky shadows. “Watch the trim.”

  “Torpedoes coming out of tubes!” Gustey shouted. “Two propellers coming on fast, rear port quarter.”

  “Hard a starboard!” Felix howled, spinning the helm wheel.

  The submarine lurched to the right. Buckle grabbed hold of a map table as the deck angled.

  “Can’t you shoot back?” Sabrina asked. “Haven’t you got stern guns, er, torpedo tubes?”

  “Afraid not, girl,” Felix replied, his jaw tight as he held the wheel pinned as far to the right as its swing would let him. “A blockade runner like the Dart is all engines and propellers in the arse. No room for stern fish.”

  “Two torpedoes passing to port!” Gustey shouted.

  Buckle saw two long tubes whiz past the left bridge window, rusted metal columns fifteen feet long, their sharp noses festooned with fuses, tails whirring with double propellers as they whirled past into the chasm.

  “No explosions,” Gustey reported.

  “Good call, Gustey,” Felix said. “Keep your ears open. There shall be more.”

  “Aye,” Gustey replied.

  “He’s not setting timers,” Kishi muttered. “Interesting.”

  “He wanted a lucky shot,” Felix said. “It’s difficult to aim on the dive.”

  “Can they still see us?” Buckle asked.

  “He’ll get a few glimmers of us at this depth and distance,” Felix replied. “But it’ll be enough to let him know where we are. He wants to crack us before we reach the gloom. The throat of Neptune’s Rift narrows considerably at this depth and his boat needs far more maneuvering space than ours.”

  “Turn to port in three, two, one”—Rachel stared at an instrument which was a strange combination of illuminated chart and two hourglasses, one of which she turned upon speaking her last word—“now!”

  Buckle saw the face of a cliff emerge head-on from the darkness. Felix pinned the helm wheel to the right. “Hard a starboard,” Felix said calmly. “Edge of the chasm.”

  The towering wall of sea moss and granite slid past the Dart and her nose found open water once again.

  “That was close,” Sabrina muttered. “And awfully fast.”

  “Ah, plenty of buffer,” Felix said. “The Rift run is timed down to inches and seconds, even adjusted for varying depths.”

  Again and again, Rachel shouted instructions for Felix and he whipped the helm around, repeatedly veering the Dart away from collisions with the sea cliffs.

  There’s what an abundance of propellers gets you, Buckle thought. A brilliant rate of turn.

  Felix turned to Kishi. “Depress diving planes to fifteen degrees. Let’s get under the light.”

  “Acknowledged.” Kishi pushed the controls on the diving planes as she kept her gaze fixed on a depth meter, a glass instrument set in a wooden frame carved with angels. The needle swept toward the red section of the dial.

  A crew member’s voice rolled out of a chattertube hood. “Enemy still on our stern, Captain. Two hundred yards. He’s turned on his lamps.”

  “The sore bastard is coming on fast,” Felix muttered, spinning the helm wheel. “Hard a’ port. Flood all tanks.”

  “Flooding all tanks, aye,” Kishi replied.

  The Dart heaved to the left, banking so sharply Buckle had to take hold of a rail or tumble across the deck. He caught a glimpse of the Founders boat out of the corner of the port window, the black, oblong shadow of the submersible between the dark, irregular cliffs of the Rift with the bright ocean surface shimmering above. The surface looked so very far away now. The dark bow of the submersible held two yellow lanterns encased in lensed apparatus which focused their light somewhat, like the glowing eyes of a huge squid.

  A pipe at Buckle’s left hand burst, spraying water.

  “Six hundred feet and descending,” Kishi said casually. “Approaching our depth rating.”

  “I know what our depth rating is,” Felix grumbled.

  “They’re trying to crack this little tin can,” Sabrina said to Buckle.

  “Ah, she’s good for it, and at least a hundred feet more,” Felix retorted as Kishi pressed the Dart straight down the maw of the rift where there was nothing but darkness.

  “I assume you’ve run her this deep before,” Buckle said.

  “Something like that,” Felix answered. “Slippery fish—this is how we earn our money, Captain. Once we get our arses under the gloom they won’t be able see us from above anymore.”

  “Torpedoes!” Gustey shouted, clamping her hands on her headphones. “Two props—coming straight into our baffles!”

  “Damn it!” Felix snapped, turning to Kishi. “Take us down to six-seventy, now!

  “Six hundred and seventy, aye!” Kishi said as she depressed her diving planes. A new tension in her voice made Buckle uncomfortable.

  “Torpedoes passing overhead,” Gustey said, removing her headphones.

  Buckle heard the distant drumming of torpedo propellers and shared a worried glance with Sabrina.

  “They’re close,” Felix said softly. “Let’s hope they haven’t had the sense to set their timers.”

  Buckle’s stomach rose into his mouth as he felt the Dart dropping fast, her metal flanks creaking against the pressure. He heard the muffled thump of an underwater explosion, followed almost instantly by the hammer force of its concussion. The Dart was flung to starboard and everyone and everything in her was hurled to the right.

  Buckle slammed against a bulkhead, taking a blow to his right cheek as he fell. He scrambled to his feet. The sea lantern bounced in the stream of a ruptured steam pipe, fluttering as its oil either sloshed away from the wick or swamped the feeder valve.

  “Seawater! I smell seawater!” Penny Dreadful cried out.

  “What do you care, robot?” Felix scowled. “You can walk home!”

  “We’ve stopped!” Rachel shouted.

  Buckle realized Rachel was right. The forward momentum, the floating cut of the Dart, was gone.
The deck no longer vibrated nor the air hummed with the rumble of the engines. She was drifting into a slight yaw to port. The hot metallic smell of overheating boilers and coal fumes assaulted Buckle’s nostrils.

  “Propulsion has lost power, boilers on overload,” Rachel announced, pointing to a set of glass-plate gauges at her engineering station. The boiler pressure needles rattled at the red end of their measures.

  “We’re drifting to port,” Kishi said. “Losing steerage.”

  “Awwwright.” Felix steadied the deck with a swing of the helm wheel. “Keep your heads. We ain’t food for the fishes quite yet.”

  “Boilers are off-line, Captain!” a voice gasped from the chattertube. “The damned hit shook ‘em loose and bent the shafts with ‘em. We had a fire but we put it out. We must purge pressure and shut boilers down or they’ll explode!”

  Buckle wanted to take command. It was his instinct to do so. The fate of himself and his officers should be in his hands. But he held himself back, though he slowly bit through his tongue in frustration. This was Felix’s boat and Buckle was no submariner. It was time for the Dart’s captain to earn his money.

  “Damn it to hell!” Felix shouted into the chattertube hood. “Do it, then. Shut ‘em down before they send us out of this world and into the next.”

  “Torpedoes in the water!” Gustey shouted, her headgear back on.

  Buckle looked up at the ceiling, at the dripping pipes, as if he could see through them, see what was coming, see the outlines of the torpedoes against the ocean sky.

  “Of course,” Felix muttered calmly. “Well, there’s only one thing for it now. Take us down, Kishi. Vent the safety tanks. Drop us like a stone to eight hundred.”

  “But we are already exceeding maximum depth,” Kishi said, growing more frightened. “We’re already in the dysphotic. He can’t see us.”

  “He knows where we are.” Felix replied grimly. “Take us down. And on the double quick.”

  VII

  THE GLOOM

  The Dart fell into a gray-green darkness, her iron skeleton groaning as the ocean welcomed her descent, reaching up to crush her. Water streamed down the inside of the bulkheads. A peculiar odor arose, similar to the smell of a hot gun barrel, and Buckle wondered if the pressure hull, compressing down at a molecular level, was emitting some sort of frictional heat.

  “Seven hundred and falling,” Kishi said, her voice thin, tight.

  “Be quiet,” Felix whispered. He leaned into the chattertube. “Running silent,” he ordered.

  For thirty seconds there was no sound except the aching complaints of the hull, the bursting of pipes, the trickle of water. Buckle screwed his fingers around in his ears, cranking open his jaw. The descent seemed to be concentrating in his eardrums—the increasing pressure, the puttering rattle of bubbles escaping the submarine as it descended into their grave.

  “Seven fifty,” Kishi said, almost breathless.

  “What’s the exact rating on this thing?” Buckle asked, watching the darkness deepen rapidly by degrees.

  “You don’t want to know.”Rachel replied.

  “Ratings are subjective,” Felix said. “Right now, vanishing into the gloom is the only chance we have.”

  “Gloom?” Sabrina asked.

  “Six hundred and fifty-six feet and below,” Felix replied, staring at lines of silver mercury rising in a bank of glass pressure tubes. “Where the sunlight fails and the true darkness of the sea begins. Where the monsters live.”

  “You’re not helping,” Sabrina grumbled.

  “The Founders boat can’t see us now but he must suspect that he crippled us,” Felix said. “We have to get under his depth charges.” He opened a small cabinet door set in the binnacle and drew forth a bottle of rum, which he uncorked with a pop and tipped up for a big swallow.

  “That cork was a bit loud,” Sabrina whispered.

  Felix grinned. “If the blokes up there hear it, they’ll understand.” He offered the bottle to Buckle, who shook his head as he stared straight up. Buckle couldn’t stop staring straight up.

  “I’ll take a swig of that,” Sabrina said, and Felix handed her the bottle. Sabrina took a large gulp.

  A weird, unsettling moan echoed through the ship, followed by a loud crumple of metal.

  “She’s a finicky boat she is,” Felix whispered. “But she’s tough. Her sides are dimpling, but they’re not giving way.”

  Sabrina took another long gulp and handed the bottle back to Felix.

  The bulkhead rivets started rattling. The glass plate on the compass cracked with a sudden, sharp smack.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Buckle said. “I shall take a snort of that rotgut if the offer is still open.”

  Felix handed the bottle to Buckle, who tipped the bottle and swallowed one, big, syrupy-sweet slug of rum.

  Outside the windows the last hints of light vanished. The ocean went black.

  “The gloom,” Rachel muttered.

  Buckle could see no more dim glow overhead. It was if the Dart had dropped through a curtain and into a void, the only light now provided by the small sea lantern and the green bioluminescence of the boil-lit instrument panels.

  “Eight hundred,” Kishi whispered.

  “Level out, stop descent,” Felix ordered.

  “Aye,” Kishi replied.

  Kishi and Rachel wound a set of hand cranks and threw a lever. The glass cover on the ship’s compass shattered and fell in on the bobbing, phosphorescent needle.

  Felix took a deep breath as Buckle handed him the bottle. “Well, this trip is surely eating away at my profit.” He corked the bottle and tucked it back into the binnacle cupboard.

  Gustey lifted her mufflers. “Enemy boat slowing to three knots, almost directly above us at five-fifty.”

  “Ah, he isn’t in the mood to test his iron, is he?” Felix said through gritted teeth. “The coward.”

  “Cavitation,” Gustey said as she listened hard in her earphones. “Engines reversed. He’s stopped.”

  Everyone peered up at the dripping ceiling.

  “He’s a suspicious sort, he is,” Felix muttered. “I’ll give him that.”

  “What do we do now?” Welly asked.

  “We wait,” Felix whispered. “We can stay down much longer than he can. Once he is forced to surface we’ll be clear of him.”

  A metal bolt fired out of the aft bulkhead and ricocheted off of the chadburn.

  “Is your little submarine going to last?” Buckle asked.

  “You’ll know it if she doesn’t,” Felix said. “I see no reason for her to let me down.”

  Buckle’s ears ached in the following silence, so intent was he upon listening. He heard the huge Founders submarine’s boilers, a low, distant, constant rumble.

  “Enemy boat holding position, directly above us,” Gustey said.

  “He knows where we are,” Welly whispered.

  “He heard our propeller shafts clang when they became unseated but he does not know our depth,” Felix said grimly. “He’s listening. Don’t make a peep.”

  The Dart shuddered along her entire hull, a long shriek of tortured metal.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he heard that,” Sabrina said dryly.

  Felix took a seat in his captain’s chair. Buckle wasn’t sure, but in the sea lamp and boil-lit darkness it seemed that Felix’s face had paled. Buckle coughed, his lungs irritated by the thickening atmosphere, contaminated with burnt coal smoke and agitated mold.

  “He needs to flush us out before he is forced to surface,” Felix said. “Ready yourselves for a rough ride.”

  “I hate depth charges,” Rachel said.

  “Depth charges?” Welly asked. “What kind of weapon is that?”

  “Underwater canister bombs,” Felix replied, scanning his instruments as he spoke. “Devil crackers. They are expensive—only big clans can afford them. They’re unreliable: the internal fuse is set so close to the powder charge that I’ve heard tell of entire sh
ips and zeppelins being obliterated after they lit their poorly sealed ordnance. But if a live one catches a submarine, well …”

  “Iron coffins,” Rachel whispered.

  Buckle shot a glare at Rachel. The woman was no ray of sunshine, to be sure. The sourness of her personality seemed entirely at home in the gloom.

  Gustey slapped her hands against her ear mufflers as she strained to hear. “Hatches opening, Captain,” she said. “Metal rolling on metal.”

  “Here we go,” Felix whispered.

  Kishi slipped her pocket watch out of her coat and started counting silently, her lips moving but making no sound.

  Felix placed his hands on the armrests of his chair, his fingers digging into the leather coverings. “They’ll have set the timers on these bastards.”

  “Big objects coming down,” Gustey said. “I hear hissing. Fuses in cans.”

  Buckle’s heart started pounding. “How closely can they estimate our depth?” he asked Felix.

  “They’ll have a good sense of it, unfortunately,” Felix replied. “They’ll suspect that I can’t go far beneath the gloom ceiling, and that my hull is ready to pop. They’ll set the charges to blow at six seventy-five or thereabouts. No more I hope—it won’t take much more than a granny’s squeeze to finish us off down here.”

  “So we just sit here and take it, then?” Sabrina asked. She sounded pissed off.

  “Felix ignored Sabrina. “Gustey—is the Founders submersible stationary or drifting?”

  Gustey recalibrated her equipment and listened. “She hasn’t stopped entirely. Momentum and the current are carrying her forward from her last position, perhaps a quarter knot, by my calculations.”

  Felix nodded and made eye contact with Buckle, who saw Felix hatching a desperate plan, the kind of plan requiring Lady Fortune’s good graces to work. Buckle grinned, feeling his bravado fueling up. Felix offered a smile back, a wild, we’re-in-this-mess-together kind of grin.