Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One)

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  It was the storms of embers that worried Buckle the most. Red-hot embers drifting mere inches from the hydrogen gas cells—the thin goldbeater’s skins that despite their rubber stockings, were always suspect for leaks.

  Buckle sprinted to the nearest companionway and charged up to the Hydro deck. He found three crew members on the Hydro catwalk, having popped the hatch on a ballast tank, their faces drenched with sweat, cranking a hand pump to draw the last few gallons of blue water into a fire-hose line.

  “Good work, old salts! Throw in some spit if you can!” Buckle shouted as he passed, hopping onto the next staircase and climbing two steps at a time up to the Axial corridor. He had his head up despite the stinging embers and buffeting wind, watching the awful glow of the fires rise and fall across the ceiling skin of the Pneumatic Zeppelin. It was dark in the shafts between the cells, and the illumination of the firefly lamps, wobbling in streams of sparkling water and tornados of churning red embers, was ghostly.

  As Buckle climbed through the decks and raced along catwalks he could make out Ivan’s voice, both urgent and calm, cursing the world. He heard the goat, Victoria, bleating, along with the sounds of pigeons cooing and hens clucking unhappily. There were the voices of men mixed in, voices shouting back and forth from above.

  Buckle clambered up to the Castle deck and raced along the catwalk in compartment eight, ducking through the firewall hatch and into compartment nine. He nearly ran into the backs of two crewmen who, blacked with soot, gripped a fire hose that only dribbled water.

  Buckle swerved past the crewmen and his boot plunged off into space, dropping into a fire-laced void where the catwalk grating should have been. Hands snatched Buckle by the collar and yanked him back; he found himself in the burly clutches of the two men manning the fire hose.

  “Look out, Cap’n!” the bigger fellow, a boilerman named Nicholas Faraday, shouted over the howling wind. “There ain’t no deck there anymore, Cap’n.”

  “Thanks, Nicholas,” Buckle said, regaining his balance.

  “We’ve got no water pressure, Cap’n,” Faraday shouted.

  “You will in a few seconds. Hold on!” Buckle yelled. He stepped to the catwalk rail and looked down. Both of the gigantic gas cells in section nine were gone: the gaping maw of the blasted compartment, twelve stories of metal catwalks, some of them bent and mangled, poked out of the firewall hatches below; shreds of the goldbeater’s cells hung everywhere, burning a translucent purple. The portside envelope was ripped wide open in a towering vertical slash, revealing the clouds beyond.

  The damage to the envelope was daunting in its scope: over one hundred and twenty feet high, and thirty feet across at the widest. The edges of the flapping rent glowed orange, burning, brightening as the slipstream sucked wave after wave of embers down into the interior of the airship.

  The copper firewalls were still intact, and they had surely saved the Pneumatic Zeppelin from oblivion: bolted-in sheets that separated every compartment from ceiling to keel, the firewalls were designed to isolate any hydrogen explosion and funnel the volcanic force of the blast outward and away from the rest of the ship. But there were always openings between the compartments—tube ports and catwalk hatchways—so sometimes the firewalls worked and sometimes they didn’t.

  It was a miracle that the Pneumatic Zeppelin was still there.

  “You got some water there for me, Cap’n?” Ivan shouted, hurrying along the catwalk, his goggles and coat encrusted with ash, his ushanka smoking in spots where embers had landed. “We’re fresh out and still burning.”

  “Any second now, Ivan,” Buckle said. “Max is on it.”

  “Never trust a Martian!” Ivan shouted over the wind, though Buckle knew Ivan was glad Max was on it.

  “You are truly an arse, Gorky,” Buckle replied.

  “Are we going to find a place to put in, or try to make it home?” Ivan asked.

  “Home,” Buckle replied. “I don’t want to overnight in a strange port—not with the passengers we have aboard.”

  Ivan grinned, his white and gold teeth abrupt against his blackened skin. “Good! I have a date, you know.”

  “Holly?” Buckle asked, knowing full well that the subject of Ivan’s affections was Holly Churchill, the winsome daughter of the town mayor, a girl whom Ivan hadn’t stopped talking about for days, since she had agreed to attend the Crankshaft Theater’s performance of Golem with him.

  “Ah, who else? Are there any other girls in the world? I don’t notice them anymore,” Ivan said, then scratched his head under his hat. “I could really use some water.”

  “In a moment,” Buckle said. Come on, Max.

  A muffled whoosh raced down the fire-hose lines as the white water shot along their lengths, plumping them up like fat, wiggling boa constrictors.

  “There we go, boys!” Ivan shouted, jumping to assist Faraday and his partner with their hose. “Let’s snuff this campfire before it snuffs us!”

  Ivan’s fire team slapped open the hose nozzle and it erupted with a stream of water that made clouds of smoke blossom below.

  “Make it count!” Buckle yelled. “It is not going to last for long!”

  “Aye!” Ivan answered, as his fire team and the teams below went to work on the compartment, judiciously dousing long stretches of flames with each pass of the hose, raising a churning fog of steam and sizzling embers.

  “This should do it, Cap’n!” Ivan yelled over the thunder of wind and steam.

  “It had better,” Buckle shouted back. “Or we are going to have to use our pissers on it!”

  MORPHINE

  MAX STEPPED BACK FROM THE bank of brass-handled valve levers at the main switching station, scrutinizing the selectors she had chosen, making sure that she had found the most effective way to route the white water into the fire-system pipes. A gust of cold air blew past her and vanished down the corridor. She shivered. It was hot here, just forward of the engineering bay and soaked with the heat of it, and the rogue blast of freezing air chilled the sweat slicking her back.

  She stepped back, watching the pressure gauges as the rerouted water coursed into the fire system, wiping her hands impatiently—her airship was damaged and needed her attentions.

  Ensign Yardbird stepped up to Max’s shoulder. He released the deep-throated huffing sound he made when he required attention. He had not had to step far from his station—the boilers and furnaces rumbled in the next compartment no more than twenty feet away—and his hobnailed boots clanging on the gratings announced his approach.

  “Yes, Mister Yardbird?” Max asked, without taking her eyes off the switching board. She hoped he had something urgent to discuss—the man was a fount of unnecessary chatter.

  “Begging your pardon, Missy Max, but are we going to attempt a scoop?” the rough but polite Yardbird asked.

  Max turned and looked at Yardbird. He was a powerful, barrel-chested man; not fat, but doughy. He was stripped to the waist like all of the stokers and boilermen who toiled in the tropical confines of the blazing-hot engine room, and his hairy flesh, glistening with sweat, steamed in the cooler air of the switching station. He had the round face of the Yardbird family, round and big-cheeked, and his cheeks were adorned with brown sideburns that he kept oiled at the edges. Max liked the man, despite his penchant for small talk: he was smart but preferred the simple, laughed often and heartily, spoke the truth as he saw it, and seemed incapable of pettiness. She hated being called “Missy Max,” but Yardbird was the only one who addressed her that way, with respectful affection, and so she, against her better judgment, allowed it because he was such a good officer in her section.

  “No, Mister Yardbird,” Max replied, pressing a valve lever that looked as if it was not cocked all of the way down. The Pneumatic Zeppelin had a scoop tube that they could lower into a freshwater lake or river, and pump water aboard to replenish ballast or coolant reserves. It was a bad idea to scoop salt-laden seawater into the airship, unless one was in a dire emergency. “A
re one and three shut down yet?”

  “One and three are snuffed, ma’am,” Yardbird said. “But the boilers are still white-hot, and the others are running very low on coolant. If there’s any white water left after the fires, ma’am, I would suggest we pump it back into the boilers lickety-split.”

  “That is my intention, Mister Yardbird. I assure you that I am not interested in losing a boiler.”

  “Aye, Missy Max,” Yardbird replied. He turned and, boots clanging, strode back into the streaming hot air of the engine room.

  Satisfied that she had wrung every last ounce of white water she could into the fire-control system, Max entered the main keel corridor and strode toward the bow with long strides, wanting to make a quick inspection of the ship’s damages. Crew members dodged past her along the corridor, some carrying muskets, others lugging water buckets as they searched for ember fires, all hunched against the tunneling wind that still battered them. The firefly lanterns banged against their posts, the gasbags rubbed against their retaining wires with imperious squeals, the superstructure groaned, all informing the chief engineer of the terrible stresses they were being subjected to—terrible stresses they were not designed to take.

  If the Pneumatic Zeppelin was going to make it home in one piece, she was going to have to make Buckle slow the ship down to a crawl, figure out how to deflect the interior gusts out of the envelope, recalculate fuel consumption, reduce drag, and recalibrate the flying instruments to compensate.

  Pluteus stepped out of the sick-bay door as Max approached. She saw exhaustion and sadness in his face in the unguarded moment before he noticed her and tightened his cheeks with his usual steel. “Chief Engineer,” he said with a nod.

  Max stopped in front of Pluteus. He stank of sweat and gunpowder, and his bronze breastplate was spattered with a dark brown patina of dried blood. Although he had always been the good sort of uncle, she knew that he had never liked her much. She knew he did not like her because she had Martian blood pumping through her veins. She knew that he disliked seeing her black, kaleidoscopic Martian eyes, and the Martian stripes on her pale skin, in Balthazar’s house, where Balthazar, his beloved cousin, called her “daughter.”

  “It is good to see you on your feet, General Pluteus,” Max said. “I had been informed that you were injured.”

  “My bruises are meaningless,” Pluteus replied. “I lost eight men today. Eight men. All the rest are wounded in some way or other, as well, though Surgeon Fogg tells me they will all survive.”

  “I am sorry for your losses. I know that every one of them is a son to you.”

  The grizzled infantry commander seemed taken aback—he and Max rarely conversed—and there was a sudden softness in his eyes toward her that she had rarely seen before. “I appreciate your concern, Max. We know it is worth every sacrifice to save Balthazar.”

  Max nodded quickly. She always felt a little unsure of herself with Pluteus. She had few memories of her parents, but somehow Pluteus profoundly reminded her of her father, who was Martian. That would have burned Pluteus’s arse for sure, because he hated Martians. So Max had grown up with a soft spot in her soul for Pluteus, a little Martian girl who forever sought a glimpse of her lost father in a human who despised her. And she had always felt vulnerable in his presence because of it. Even now, as an adult woman, she realized that she was still haunted by a deep-rooted need to engage with Pluteus, make him look at her and listen to her—though in reality she avoided him as best she could.

  “Lieutenant, can you go into sick bay and order Lady Andromeda to accept medical attention?” Pluteus asked. “She is refusing, saying she will entertain no doctoring until everyone else has been properly attended to. But she is badly hurt.”

  Max did not want to deal with a difficult clan leader in the infirmary—not right now. “I am on my way to make a damage inspection. I can—”

  “Just order her!” Pluteus growled, the softness disappearing from his eyes, replaced by a distant stare. “It will take ten seconds. You are second mate. She must obey your orders aboard ship.” He turned and strode down the corridor toward the bow. “I must make my report to Captain Buckle.”

  Max stared after Pluteus. She was thankful that his back was turned, that he could not see the pinkish glow her eyes were letting seep into her goggles—not that he would know what it meant if he did anyway. “Very good, General Pluteus,” she whispered, and stepped into the sick-bay hatchway.

  The sick bay was lit by a great raft of buglights overhead, and they provided a flood of bright, pulsing light. There were more buglights over the ten beds, each one loaded with a wounded Crankshaft or Alchemist trooper. Others, with lighter injuries, sat in chairs or leaned against the bulkheads. Pieces of armor and leather gear, some of it bloody, were strewn on the floor. The room was strangely quiet, the kind of quiet that vibrated the air around people in pain who were gritting their teeth and toughing it out. Surgeon Fogg and Nurse Nightingale rushed about, pulling jags of shrapnel from ripped flesh, wrapping bloody bandages, applying chloroform, and sinking needles of morphine into the muscles of thighs and shoulders.

  Andromeda lay on the bed against the forward bulwark, with Scorpius and Kepler hovering over her. She wore a clean infirmary blouse with small white buttons on the cuffs and collar, and blood from her numerous wounds was beginning to seep through spots in the cotton. She looked deathly pale and fragile.

  Max removed her pilot helmet and tucked it under her arm as she arrived at Andromeda’s bed. “Lady Andromeda, may I please have a word?”

  Scorpius stepped to the end of the bed, blocking Andromeda from Max. “What is your business, Martian?” he asked.

  Andromeda’s weak voice rose from the pillow. “Scorpius, let the officer pass.”

  Scorpius moved aside.

  Max took a step forward. Andromeda looked up at her, one eye bright red with blood. “I am the chief engineer,” Max said. “I have been informed that you are refusing treatment, Lady Andromeda.”

  “Just temporarily, until the others are taken care of.” Andromeda sighed, but the way she blinked, the clench of skin at the corners of her eyes, betrayed her true condition to the highly sensitive Max—Andromeda was in considerable pain.

  “You are aware that you are the priority,” Max said.

  “Perhaps, but my discomfort is minimal,” Andromeda countered. “I offer you and your crew the most sincere gratitude for your assistance in my rescue along with your Balthazar.”

  “It is an honor,” Max said, ready to depart. “Shall I tell the surgeon you are ready to see him now?”

  “What is your name, Chief Engineer?” Andromeda asked.

  Max hesitated. She never like pleasantries. “My name is Max.”

  “Very good. Come, Max, please, sit here beside me,” Andromeda said, motioning to a chair beside her bed.

  Max did not move. “I only have a moment, Lady Andromeda.”

  “Of course,” Andromeda replied, and patted the chair seat with her hand. The invitation was not going to be withdrawn.

  Max reluctantly sat down. “With all due respect, Lady Andromeda, you must allow our medical officers to tend to you.”

  “That sounds like an order to me,” Surgeon Fogg said, stepping past Scorpius and Kepler to stand at the opposite side of the bunk. “Lady Andromeda, you have suffered a severe concussion and multiple shrapnel wounds, and you are quite possibly bleeding internally. I need to start treating you now.”

  Nurse Shelley Nightingale, a lovely young brunette, arrived at Fogg’s shoulder with a large syringe full of yellow fluid.

  “Wait! Wait!” Scorpius blustered. “What is that?”

  “Morphine, to reduce her pain,” Fogg answered, getting impatient with Kepler, who had just blocked his way. “Every trooper in here has been tended to. You both risk her life if you delay her treatment any longer.”

  “I shall submit myself to your care, good surgeon, if Max here will do me a favor,” Andromeda said.

  “
If I can,” Max said, hiding her severe annoyance with the game the Alchemist leader seemed to be playing.

  “Can you please remove your goggles?” Andromeda asked.

  Max blinked. This was an odd request. She could take the goggles off, often for half an hour or more before any irritation set in, but no one, no one had ever asked her to remove them before. Her first instinct was to refuse.

  “Please. Just for a moment,” Andromeda asked, reading Max’s mind.

  Max raised her hands halfway to her face and paused. This Alchemist woman, still possessing a profound charismatic radiance, even though she was disheveled and injured, made her want to obey—and she did not like that. But she flipped the switch to drain the aqueous humor into the reserve chamber of her helmet, and removed the goggles anyway.

  Max wiped her wet eyes with her sleeve and blinked. The appearance of things was always a bit odd right after she removed her goggles. The world, crisper around the edges and less magnified, also seemed starker. Surgeon Fogg was already bending over Andromeda’s bed, sinking the needle into her arm and pushing down the plunger.

  If Andromeda noticed the needle, she did not wince, nor take her eyes off Max. “You are half Martian, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Andromeda raised her hand to touch Max’s cheek. Max flinched. No one, especially not a stranger, had touched her face in a very long time.

  “May I?” Lady Andromeda asked softly.

  Max was arrested by Andromeda’s eyes—so violet they were almost black, impossibly iridescent. They reminded her of her brother’s eyes. “It is not necessary,” Max said. “But if you must.”

  Andromeda brushed her fingers along Max’s cheek; it was a barely perceptible touch, soft as a butterfly’s wing beat, the fingertips cool on her skin.