Without a wind to pull them free, they would have to rely on a mechanical gust. He could only hope that his ship had slipped far enough out from under the Ararat that it might be tugged free without coming to shreds. It all depended upon the train coursing through the Market below. Already the engine was behind them and moving away.
Iren called him back from his thoughts. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to spear the train. It will tow us out from under this beast, and then you must open the tank or we’ll be dragged into the ground.”
“You don’t have a shot,” Iren said, pointing where the train had passed behind the quarterdeck.
Senlin swiveled the cannon around, pointing it over the main deck directly at the door of the Great Cabin. “I’m going to have to make one.” Iren opened her mouth to argue, but Senlin barked at her as he never had before. “This is our only chance. You must open the tank!”
Iren looked as if she might lunge at him for speaking to her so forcefully. He did not spare her the emphasis of his gaze. Somewhere in the hull, a breaking beam raised a mighty crack. Iren stuck the handle of the axe between her teeth like the bit of a bridle, and hurdled the railing. Her chain rang fast upon the cleat. She bounced against the hull until she caught ahold of it.
Cupping his hands, Senlin called to Edith, who had slid down to one corner of the deck. “Open the cabin door!”
Edith scrambled over to the door but kept her alarmed expression turned toward Senlin. She realized that he was not only clinging to the cannon, but also attempting to aim it, apparently at her. She rattled the latch of the door, found it locked, and began patting herself for the key. “What are you doing?”
“Open it now!”
Ducking to the side, Edith pounded the door once with her engine arm, emptying the hinges. Senlin triggered the flint that sparked upon the plate, touching off the load of black powder. The harpoon fired, carrying its line down the spine of his ship. It passed through his cabin and exited by the bay window of Edith’s chart house in the blink of an eye.
The desperate arrow plunged toward the Market amid a shower of broken glass, flying over the heads of merchants and tourists who had all begun to panic and bolt from the shadow of the falling ship. The harpoon found its mark. It struck the roof of a dining car, piercing the ceiling within and startling the waiters who were setting up for tea. The spur tore the roof open, popping lanterns and shattering plaster as it gouged a path to the rear of the dining car where it finally snagged upon the iron frame.
At the end of the taut line, the Stone Cloud leapt like a startled horse. The two airships broke from each other, the smaller ship descending sharply as the train hauled it into the wind.
The violent lurch of the ship propelled Senlin over the bow. He caught the gunwale by little more than his fingertips, his legs turning and kicking in open air. He pulled his head level with the deck in time to see the cannon crack free of its moorings and tumble along the length of the deck. The barrel caught and snapped the umbilical, narrowly missing the furnace, and bounced through the threshold of the Great Cabin, breaking the lintel. The gyrating gun pulverized a linen chest, a bureau, and one corner of Senlin’s bed. It gathered and carried a coma of debris. By the time it struck the partition of the chart house, it had become a comet.
The cannon blew out the aft of the ship, taking Edith’s room with it.
Clinging to the ribs of the keel below, Iren had continued to chop at the hinge of the ballast tank through it all. She was in the midst of her second swing when the ship surged after the train. She was in the midst of her third swing when the unmoored cannon destroyed the chart house. And when the fourth swing bit into the hinge, the cloud finally burst.
Part II
The Golden Zoo
Chapter One
“We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd.”
- Folkways and Right of Ways in the Silk Gardens, Anon.
During the honeymoon days after their escape from New Babel, the Stone Cloud had seemed as glorious as a pleasure cruiser to her rescued crew. They were not blind to her flaws, of course. They perceived the knot-repairs in her rigging and the subtle tilt of her deck. Her furnace was as intemperate as a two-year-old. Yet, from her filthy orlop to her frayed telltales, she was every inch their savior, and they loved her.
They spent a day tumbling in the blizzard that blew them out of the Commissioner’s reach, then broke from the great wall of snow upon a bucolic scene of flocking sheep, a drowsy hamlet, and fields combed for their winter rest. Without intending to, they had traversed the mountains that encircled the Valley of Babel.
This glimpse of farmland made Edith quite nostalgic, but Senlin’s first thought upon seeing the old world again was, We mustn’t stray too far from the Tower.
He needn’t have worried. The wind perished, and the ship fell into a fog that lapped upon the foothills like a milky sea. As they sank, the sun shrank and blackened like a raisin, inviting a gloom that thickened into night. Senlin had never experienced such profound silence before. He could hear the others stir and breathe, could hear the murmur of his own heart. They lit the deck lamps, though the light only swapped one opaque medium for another— black for white, dark for fog.
Rather than feel socked in or blinded, they felt embraced by the mist, because if they could hardly see each other standing upon the same deck, what chance did anyone else have of seeing them?
It was such a luxury to be unafraid.
They took advantage of the respite to clear out what Lee’s crew had left behind. Like a bird brings new threads to an old nest, they began to make the Cloud their own.
In his great cabin, Senlin tried to solve that most ancient of domestic puzzles: the arrangement of furniture in a room. The goal, of course, was to please the eye without terrorizing the shin, which seemed simple enough on the face of it, but was really quite a riddle. Captain Lee had been unencumbered by any aesthetic sense; the proof of that showed in his decision to push every stick of furniture to the wall. The great walrus of a wardrobe, the leather-trimmed chest, the dining set, and the prissy four-post bed all lurked at the perimeter of the room.
“It’s like being surrounded, isn’t it?” Marya said, turning about in the center of the floor. “That wardrobe looks like it’s plotting something.” She thrust out her chin and smiled at him, just as she once had from the carriage window of a train the day she returned from the women’s conservatory. She beamed at Isaugh’s humble station, the aging porters and the ladies in their ponderous, out-of-fashion hats. Her auburn hair swam about her face, blown by the waning steam, and he, having come on some business he at once forgot, stared up at this winsome woman, his former pupil, and was hopelessly smitten.
He suspected the figment would disappear soon enough, and in the meantime she wasn’t any great bother. It was a time of transition for him, a time for adapting to his new function as Captain, a role that seemed at once ill-suited to his talents and yet impossible to refuse, a role which left him to wrestle with the morality of imperiling his friends for the sake of his wife. Out of this inner turmoil, the specter of Marya had emerged. She let him recall the man he had once been: the sincere headmaster, the bore of parties, the awkward fiancé.
Of course, he knew better than to form an attachment to the figment. He decided at once he would not converse with her, but that did not mean he could not enjoy this nostalgic specter. When the crumb ran its course and she vanished again into memory, he would heave a great sigh and carry on.
Marya set a knuckle to her chin and squinted thoughtfully as he shouldered the wardrobe out of the cabin’s corner. “That’s better. He seems more friendly there. Now, what’s to be done with this chest?”
A quick knock sounded, and the heavy door to the main deck flew open upon a cloud. Voleta emerged from the fog, her eyes trained on the t
ea tray she carried before her. She wore a fanciful assemblage of ill-fitting clothes; her boots swamped her legs past the knees.
She closed the door with her hip and said, “Edith, I mean Mister Winters— my, that does sound strange— she said you should eat.”
Senlin quit pressing upon the wardrobe and took the tray at once. “Goodness, you don’t need to serve me. Please, tell Mister Winters in the future I will take my meals with the rest of you in the galley.” He made a space on the table for the tea set, cup and saucer, and a bowl full of something quivering and gray.
“Could it be pudding?” he asked.
“It could be pudding,” she said, and clasped her hands behind her back. She looked about at the shuffled furniture, the stacks of books, the sad tangle of bright scarves and beads that lay in a clump upon the bed. “It’s quite nice in here,” she said.
He had seen the other quarters, and felt abashed at the relative luxury of his cabin. It certainly hadn’t been his first choice of lodging, but Edith had insisted, and he had acquiesced. “I was going through Lee’s effects, and found a collection of… trinkets, I suppose you’d call them. I doubt they’re worth anything, but would you like them?”
“No, no, thank you. Those are like fishing lures for silly girls. Besides, I don’t think pirates wear trinkets.”
He chuckled as he swept the sparkling clump off his bed and into the trunk. “We’re not pirates, Voleta.”
“Said the Captain of the pirate ship.”
It was something of a pleasant surprise to discover that Adam’s sister was so quick-witted, if not a little impertinent. Adam had many admirable gifts; he was an able mechanic and a tireless worker, but he was not gifted in the conversational arts. Senlin perceived in this young woman a sharp and inquisitive mind. “We really haven’t had a chance to talk.”
“Been too busy screaming and chewing our nails. That was an awful storm.”
“It was indeed. Please,” he gestured at a chair. “Since you’re already here, why don’t we have a spot of tea?”
She curtseyed, immediately looked annoyed with herself, and then plopped down upon the chair. “There’ll be no more of those, Captain. No more curtsies. Salutes, certainly. Handshakes, if you like. But I left the rest of my curtseys in New Babel.”
“As you should have.” He retrieved a second cup from the china rack and poured them both a cup. “What do you think of our little arrangement?”
“Being an aeronaut, you mean? Living on a ship? Having you as a captain? All that?”
“Yes, all that exactly.” He took a spoonful of the colorless porridge, swallowed with some effort, and chased the bland lump with a sip of bitter tea.
“It’s grand,” she said, opening the sugar bowl and peering inside. “I like adventure, and I like you, too. I especially like that you shot Rodion.”
Senlin saw the jailor’s key in his hand, the tuft of gun smoke and the tear of blood running down Rodion’s face. The pimp’s expression turned transparent, showing the boy inside the hateful and angry ego. And it was that person, that open-faced and hopeful lad, who fell dead at Senlin’s feet.
“I think it’s right to defend yourself and your friends,” Senlin said in a constrained tone. “But I don’t think I’ll ever feel proud about shooting anyone.”
“He was not anyone, sir. He was a villain of the first degree. He was a predator who liked to, who liked to…” She had begun to shake her head, her gaze transfixed. She shuddered and recovered her smile. “Thank you, anyway, for getting me and Adam out.”
He sustained a pleasant expression, but the mention of her brother’s name set his thoughts to warring. He would never admit how deeply Adam’s betrayal had wounded him. It wasn’t just the deceit that cut him; it was the honesty of Adam’s calculation. Rodion, vile as he was, was the sensible choice and the more valuable ally. The boy’s decision wasn’t wicked; it was self-preserving. How could the adopted bonds of friendship compete with the bonds of family and the impulse to survive?
He could think of nothing to say, and so only smiled and sipped his tea.
“I don’t think you and he can be friends again,” she said, turning the cup slowly upon the saucer, looking at its steaming contents rather than his frozen smile. “We know that. It may take Adam a while to come to the same conclusion, but I think he will, too.”
A little surprised by the acuity of her statement, Senlin tried to be diplomatic. “I don’t blame him for choosing you over me. Family takes precedent. I understand that, and I’m sure he thought he—”
“You needn’t defend him. I certainly won’t. I think he made a mistake. He didn’t include me in the decision, I can tell you. I would never have chosen Rodion. Never.” She put three spoonfuls of dingy sugar in her tea and began to stir it vigorously. “But the real question is, if you can’t be friends, what can you be?”
It didn’t take much reflection to know she was right. The fact that he couldn’t trust Adam didn’t settle the question of whether he could coexist with him peaceably. He hadn’t spoken to Adam since their escape, but he knew he would have to eventually, and it would be better for all concerned if the silence were broken sooner rather than later.
“I suppose we could just rely on the stations we’ve assumed. I will be his captain, and he will be my crew,” Senlin said with a mixture of relief and regret. “Perhaps some formality will do us both good—”
A knock at the door interrupted him. Adam emerged from the fog, his face turned down. His arm was bandaged, and bruises showed on his handsome face, but his worst wound was not the visible sort.
“I dropped a plumb bob to check our clearance. I ran out of string, so we’ve got at least a hundred feet of air under us.” Expecting no reply, Adam turned to leave.
Voleta gave Senlin an expectant look.
“One moment,” he said, rising from his seat. “Do you think we’re safe enough as we are?”
Adam lifted his gaze long enough to scan the captain’s expression, which was admirably composed. He cleared his throat and straightened his back a little. “We’re all right for the moment, but we should think about poking our heads out to have a look around. Get our bearings.”
“That sounds reasonable. Consult with Mister Winters, and if she agrees, take us up for a look.”
“Ayesir.”
“And Adam…” The young man paused, his hand upon the doorknob. “Good work.”
The Stone Cloud’s bones were showing.
The cannon had split the forecastle, gouged the main deck, savaged the great cabin, and obliterated the charthouse on its way out. Senlin stood middeck, and stared through the aft of his ship, waiting for the devastation to seem real.
He was doing his best to hide his shock from the others, but the fact was they were lucky to be alive, and he was luckiest of all that his mad gamble hadn’t ended with them being driven aground, or dragged behind a train, or blown from the sky.
The torn flue lay in coils about the deck like spilled intestines. The envelope was a warped and puckered mass. The tilt of the deck was no longer slight. In fact, the whole ship seemed ready to tip.
He wondered what Marya would say about the state of the Cloud, something biting and pert, no doubt… But what madness! He was thinking of her as if she were real, as if she were anything but a crumb of the Crumb…
“The wind is still with us,” Adam said, stepping into Senlin’s line of sight. The Captain was scowling so savagely that Adam hesitated a moment before he finished, “It’s blown the Ararat off. Voleta hasn’t seen a speck of her for two hours.”
Voleta was in the netting, crawling all about the curdled balloon, listening at the self-sealed wounds for any lingering leaks. Whenever she heard the telltale hiss, she painted the spot with glue, then patched it with a square of silk.
Senlin’s head was so full of other things that it took him a moment to absorb the news. “I doubt he’ll stay away long. We keep heaping humiliations upon him, and he’s not one to forgive emb
arrassment.”
“By my count, that’s three times you’ve scoffed him. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson. Captain Mudd isn’t to be trifled with.”
Senlin laughed without smiling. “That’s not the lesson I took from it. Next time you ask to work on the ship, I should let you. That faulty lever nearly killed us.”
“I could never have guessed where it would break. There’s a hundred feet of dry-rotted hydraulic tubing running underfoot. The only thing holding us together at this point is hope.”
“Apparently we ran out of that.”
“Impossible. We have you.”
Senlin had the aggrieved expression of one unaccustomed to compliments. “I think you’re confusing hope with stubbornness, Adam.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what hope is. Stubbornness. Refusing to go down. You harpooned a train, carved up the ship, and nearly sent the Ararat to the ground. Call it what you like, but it feels like hope.” Adam smiled, a rare enough sight, and Senlin glimpsed the friend he’d lost.
Adam’s encouragement warmed him, and when he looked again at his ship, he saw the miracle lurking beneath the disaster. For all its holes, the Cloud was still afloat. Adam was right: there was hope yet.
When Edith approached, dragging a remnant of her room’s patrician, she found Senlin and Adam smiling at the mess that lay all about them. “Good news, I hope?” she said.
“The Ararat is away, and we’re still afloat,” Senlin said, and helped her shift the load onto the growing pile of scrap wood. They would pull the redeemable nails, salvage the better planks, and the rest would go over the side. He found it curious that she hadn’t used her engine arm for the chore. Perhaps she wanted to exercise the muscles of her other limb.
She wiped the sweat from her chin onto her blouse. “What about the umbilical? Can we repair it?”
Adam was no longer smiling. “Wherever we light next, we’ll be stuck there until we find a replacement. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you we are not long for the sky. It may not be a gentle landing.”
Arm of the Sphinx (Books of Babel Book 2) Page 10
