by Raven Bond
Tesla turned to Abigail.
“Lady Hadley,” Tesla said solemnly, “I do apologize for requiring your assistance so soon after such a tragedy as you have experienced, but I cannot do this alone in the time we appear to need.”
Abigail's eyes began to water; she fought the tears down. Now was not the time to be all full of the vapors like some sniveling thing, she thought angrily. She took a deep breath. It was so hard to breathe sometimes; she was so cold deep in her core. Well, she had not been able to save Father; the least she could do was try to help save the ship and crew. There would be time to lay down and weep later.
“Thank you, Tesla,” she said tightly. “I assure you I am quite alright.”
“Of course, Lady Hadley,” the savant murmured. “If we may continue then, would you be so good as to connect the Aether pump to,” he looked around the walls and ceiling as if he could see through the walls. His finger stabbed out towards the power outlet on the far wall. “that power conduit, please.” Abigail looked at where he pointed.
“There?” she asked incredulously. “But we need to wire it. . .”
“Yes, yes,” Tesla cut her off with a chopping motion, waving of one of the copper rods he held. “There is no time for that. Simply wire it in an open configuration.” He held up the rod again for emphasis. “Do not activate the pump until I return!”
“We could destroy the ship if we do not do this correctly!” Abigail objected.
“Lady Hadley,” Tesla said in a patient tone of voice as he looked at her in sympathy. “The ship is most likely going to be destroyed in any case. Really, you should pay more attention!” With that, the tall Savant capered out of the workshop like a giant demented figure, leaving Abigail standing alone in the middle of the room. She shook herself and pulled on her rubber gloves in preparation to doing the re-wiring.
Chapter 20
Wind Dancer, Rigger Space
Tesla bounced down the corridor, headless of the gyrations of the besieged ship. His attention was on the map of the ship-wiring he saw in his mind. Even though he had had no hand in building the Wind Dancer, he knew how the ship was put together. It was simple, really. He had always been able to see an image in his mind of whatever mechanism he chose, as real as if it was before him. He was frankly bemused by those who had to have something drawn out for them.
Tucking the rods under one arm, the Savant scrambled up a ladder until he came out on a railed service way in the upper regions of the ship. Tesla looked around at the cavernous open space, lined with walkways like the one he traversed. Between the inflated cells of lift gas, the pipes and electrical conduits of the ship ran parallel to the walkways. He traced out the conduit patterns with his eyes and with a determined nod, moved swiftly down the walkway towards the destination he needed. So intent was Tesla on reaching his goal, that he nearly ran into the rigger in front of him. The young man lowered his breath mask to gape at the Savant before him.
“Mr. Tesla!” the young rigger exclaimed. “You shouldn't be up here, especially not without a breather and a heavy coat!”
Tesla paused to look at the young man. He was wearing the usual mishmash of clothing that everyone on the ship seemed to favor, including a heavy, gray woolen coat. It was rather chilly up here, Tesla realized, not that it mattered. He pointed to the heavy rubber gloves on the man's belt.
“Give me your gloves,” Tesla commanded. The bemused youngster handed them over. Tesla skipped down the walkway, the younger man following along in his wake.
Tesla stopped in front of one of the electrical junctions. The rows of fist sized glass cylinders that severed as fuses stood like soldiers on parade.
“Does this row serve conduit E-7?” Tesla pointed with one of the copper rods in his hand, “and this one B-2?”
“Well yes, that is right,” the Rigger stammered. “But I don't see what you're doing up here?” the Rigger asked again.
“The ship is under attack, but it will be alright,” Tesla reassured him. He held out one of the rods towards the rigger. “Here, hold this.” Tesla tucked the other rod under his arm and pulled on the rubber gloves. “Now stand back,” he said, hefting the rod.
“But I still don't see what you're doing up here,” the man began again. Whatever else he was going to say turned into a scream of terror as Tesla thrust the rod through a row of fuses. Sparks flew. Some of the cylinders were shattered by the thrust, while others popped off their connections and rolled onto the walkway. Tesla grabbed the other rod and thrust it through another row of fuses. Electricity arced between the two rods while a fountain of sparks spat and hissed.
Tesla nodded to himself at a job well done. He pointed back towards the stern, addressing the shocked Rigger.
“You might wish to clear this walkway,” Tesla said, “and see about diverting the current at that junction back there, I believe. Otherwise there might be a problem.”
“What are you doing?” The rigger screamed at him. Tesla looked at him, startled by his excitability.
“Why saving the ship, of course,” Tesla said. “Now do see to that junction will you? I mustn't dilly-dally here talking!” With that he bounded back towards the ladder. Now if only Lady Hadley had finished the wiring. She seemed more competent than most Scholars, Tesla reflected. Her questions were generally more germane to what was going on at least.
~ ~ ~
It seemed an eternity to Will before the call came from the workshop. They had taken more strikes in the meantime. Devi had reported that one of their engine props had shorted out under the onslaught. While the engine prop was not on fire, the loss reduced their speed. To anyone on the Bridge, it looked as if Will was calmly standing with his hands behind his back. The Captain acknowledged reports, while gazing out at the discharges as they wrapped their deadly energies around the ship. In truth, he was grimly holding his hands in tight fists, willing the ship to hold together. Waiting on Tesla's miracle. He hated feeling helpless, but he had decided on their course, and would not act until it might mean something. Naomi's clear voice came singing across the Bridge.
“Lady Hadley reports that they are ready, Captain,” she reported. Naomi paused, listening on her headphones. “Coil cannon also reports fully charged and ready.”
“That is our call, folks,” Will announced to the bridge. He nodded decisively and pulled up his goggles, flipping the smoked lenses down over the mountings.
“Jarro, come about and center on the enemy,” Will ordered. “Naomi, coil cannon to fire as they bear, and repeat fire as they recharge. All lookouts on rocket interdiction. Sound secure for maneuver.”
No matter how strong Tesla had hopped up the cannon, Will sure that they would have to dodge about, striking their foe until they had a burn-through. It didn’t matter, Will told himself forcefully. Dancer was more maneuverable than the battle wagon. The main consideration was whether they would need to divert the cannon fire to take down any guided rockets the battleship might fire.
They could not fly too close, Will reminded himself. If Tesla was right, Will was confident that they could at least let the enemy know they had been kissed.
“Ay, yay, yao,” Will cried aloud, pumping his fist up into the air. The cry was taken up by the others on the bridge, until the walls rang with echoes.
The Wind Dancer glided around in a tight arc, causing another bolt of man-made lightening to crackle to the side in a miss. Will watched as the bigger enemy swung into sight. It was only a few miles behind them now, and he fancied that he could see movement through the widows of the enemy bridge across the distance. No doubt they were surprised at the shark turning to snap at the whale, he thought wryly. Suddenly a sun-bright bar of light speared from the cannon over Will's head towards the other ship.
Blinking away the dazzle that affected his eyes even through the darkened goggles, Will looked on in amazement as a flower of flame blossomed from where the spear of light had touched the larger ship. The flower grew and expanded into a bright ball as the othe
r ship exploded. Beside him, Rogers loosed an almost-reverent blasphemy at the destruction spread before them. The light tubes overhead flickered and died as the deep thrum of the Dancer's engines stopped dead.
“Well!” Will said into the stunned silence on the bridge. The flaming debris started to fall from the sky. “I guess you could say that was 'more than sufficient'.”
Chapter 21
Wind Dancer, Over China
Abigail looked with dull eyes around her cabin. Nothing made sense. They had just buried her father on a hill that over-looked the terrible place where the alien artifact had been buried. She had thought it a fitting resting place for him. He was near the discovery that he had sought his whole life, a discovery that had also killed him.
Chang had tried to explain that when the thing in the pillar had been damaged it must have severed it's 'connection' with her father, resulting in his death. To Abigail, it sounded like mystical clap-trap, but she had no better explanation. There had been no external signs of injury. As father had been christened Church of England, any kind of autopsy was out of the question, as far as she was concerned. It was overly sentimental of her perhaps, but she felt entitled to sentiment over the needs of science for once.
The hill under which the artifact was buried was now much smaller. Tesla theorized that the Invader vessel, and most of the hill over it, had disintegrated when the engines had been destroyed. Still, his plague-ray-detector showed that they dare not come closer than where they were. It was certain that nothing remained of the vessel and its living nightmares.
Will had decreed that as they long as they had power and the engines restored, they could take the time to honor her father before getting underway to Calcutta. The patchy repairs would hold for now, but they would require constant monitoring. The last day had been a frantic blur of re-wiring and patch-repair work for her. The worst of it, for Abigail, had been mediating between Tesla and Devi.
Tesla had to be restrained from making 'improvements' to everything, and Devi had to be restrained from killing Tesla with her bare hands for 'meddling'. Abigail was in awe of Devi's incredibly sharp invective, though it seemed to have no effect on Tesla whatsoever.
She began to get out of her dress, fingers moving mechanically. The entire crew had turned out for the burial service dressed in their gaudy best. She felt she could do no less. Tesla had spoken nice words, as had Will. Saira had recited another of her beautiful poems when it had started to rain. It was only later that Abigail realized that there had been no rain. Her face had become wet because she was crying.
Laying the dress on the cot, a wave of anger washed over her. The Invaders had stolen him away from her, like cowardly thieves with their poisoned ways. The man she had embraced in that alien hell had not been her Father; Father had already been dead before she got to the alien site.
She would refuse to remember him as ‘that man’, as that cold and superior mad man. He had never been that to her. She would remember instead the gentle man who had helped her dismantle her first Tesla engine. The man who had held her through her night terrors, who had encouraged her to be her own person first and the devil take Society. A good man. A good man taken by evil monsters. How many other good men had been taken in the same way? How many more would be? Were there more monsters loose in the world?
The pain in her hands made her realize her fists were so clenched that her own nails were cutting into her palms. She was still standing in the middle of the cabin in her undergarments. She did not know how long she had been doing so. Looking down at the cot, she saw that on one side was her dress, on the other the clothes she had worn shipboard. Her electric pistol was atop her ship clothes. It seemed like a revelation to her, seeing them side by side.
She could return to England and resume her duties there. Tesla would surely see to that if she asked him. Mrs. McDougall, their housekeeper of many years, would have to be informed of father's fate, a task Abigail did not look forward to.
Abby had already decided that the discovery of power generation belonged with someone like Tesla, someone who could truly see it used for all mankind. The goals of father’s scholar cabal seemed rather petty now. There was little to recommend Cambridge to her, but she could return there.
Or she could hunt down the other monsters and kill them. Stop them before they robbed another person of their loved ones. The implications of the changes to her father's body and how they resembled what was observable in both Petrov and that dead man in Hong Kong were not lost on her. There were more of them. She was sure of it. How to find them was the question. She reached for her pistol.
No one seeing her face tried to stop her on her way to the Captains day cabin. When she tried to open the door, she found it blocked by Rogers standing on the other side.
“Lady Hadley,” the first officer greeted her in some confusion when he saw who was trying to barge in.
“Let her in, Lawrence,” Abigail heard Will's voice say. She strode into the room, and stopped before the desk where Will sat.
“I want to go after them,” she said without preamble.
“Lawrence, give us a moment will you,” Will said. When the first office had left, will had pulled out a bottle and a pair of glasses, setting them on the table.
“Sit down,” He said to her.
Abigail stayed where she was.
“I do not believe you heard me!” Abigail said. Her voice sounded harsh and raw, even to herself. “I do not want a drink. I want to go after them. Will you help me or not?”
“Sit. Down!” he said implacably, Will met her gaze while pouring from the bottle of amber spirits.
Something in his voice or gaze seemed to take all the tension from Abigail's bones. She slumped into the chair across from him. Numbly she took the glass that he held out to her.
“To Lord Robert Hadley. “Will raised his own glass in salute. Her eyes were watering again; she blinked back tears. She followed his example and drained the glass in one go. She coughed as the liquor burned its way down.
Will took the glass from her and filled both glasses again. Setting her glass before her, he spoke.
“You feel like there is a great big empty spot in your chest,” Will said to her. “You feel like the rest of you is on fire, and you want to hunt down the dirty worms what are kin to the thing that took your father away from you in such a filthy manner. You want to destroy them utterly. Grind them into whatever bloody mash they turn into, and then do it all over again.”
“Yes!” Abigail snatched up the glass and drained it again. She sat the glass down forcefully on the desk. Will filled it again.
“And you want me and the Dancer to help you,” Will said, looking at her over his own glass.
“Yes!” Abigail cried. “Doubtless you have also discerned that there must be some connection between what happened to my father and your own enemy Petrov.”
“No.”
“What?” Abigail paused with her own glass in hand.
“I said no.” The dark skinned Captain took another sip from his own glass. “I will not help you destroy yourself.” He looked at her with dark eyes.
“I know that you are not thinking at present, even though it feels like you are,” Will continued. “I know something of what you are feeling, believe me. You are feeling that tearing after whoever they are will fill that hollow again. That destroying them will help somehow. It will not.” He drained his glass. “I have learned that it doesn’t fix the feeling.”
“What you want help with is revenge.” He said bluntly. “Revenge will not help you nor anyone else. If I say yes now, all it will do is get you killed if we are lucky. It will kill this ship and all of us if we are not. I walked that path at one point, what it did was cause me not to pay attention and more people died because of it.”
“I agree with what you said about the similarities between Petrov and your Da. I think you might even be right about what it means, but both Petrov and your father are dead.” He toyed with the glass on t
he table in front of him. “What you do not understand is that what you are talking about might take years to do, and you will not do it from within the ivy-covered halls of that University of yours.
Revenge is not enough, not for this job. You have to want to save the world, Lady Hadley. Even if that means that you do not get to see the bastards die by your own hand.
I am not saying that you should not feel what you feel. I am sayin' that if that's all you got, you're going to lose. You’ll take a lot of other people with you. I want you to go and think about that, Abigail, and then we will talk again. Because I surely do not need a half-cocked amateur on my hands. I’ve got enough to deal with.”
Abigail felt all the blood drain from her face. Controlling her shaking she sat the glass carefully on the table. She spoke as if some clockwork mechanism was in her throat instead of her own voice.
“Well, Captain Hunting Owl, thank you for your opinion, as well as the drink. I believe that I may have misjudged you after all. I certainly shall not take up any more of your precious time.” With that she flung herself out of the chair and out of the room.
Abigail blindly moved down the corridors of the ship. Somehow she wound up in front of the door to Saira's cabin. She didn't even know if the woman was there, but she found her hand rising to knock, almost of its own accord.
“Who is there?” came Saira's voice through the door.
Leaning close to the door, Abigail said in a hushed voice, “It is Abigail,” she said. “I'm sorry to bother you. I can return later.”
“Abigail? No wait one moment!” Before Abigail could turn away, the door opened and Abigail faced Tesla.
“Tesla,” she stammered. Looking around him she saw Saira sitting on her bunk, clearly naked but with some cloth over her loins. Abigail blushed a deep red.
“I am so, so sorry. I can return later.” She turned around as quickly as she could when Tesla's voice came over her back.
