As the station’s new guests, Nathanial and Annabelle were given places at van den Bosch’s right and left hands, respectively. Several department heads had already arrived and seated themselves. As there was still much to do, the others, specifically the quartermaster, chief translator, and fleet supervisor (who oversaw the docking bay and cutters), would not be joining them. The station’s security chief, the Irishman named Dolan, would be arriving late, as he was overseeing the handling of Esmeralda.
Introductions of those department heads present were made. There was Doctor Matthew Holmes, the short, rotund station’s physician, a one-man department who, by his own words, had got a free trip out into the aether, as injuries, aside from the occasional scrape or bruise from a hard day’s work, was all that had occurred thus far.
“Except in the case of occasional death,” Mister Uriah Provost, the station’s resident wit and botanist (“Minister of Breathable Oxygen”, he claimed was his title), replied with some humour. He oversaw the station’s three greenhouses, situated in transparent domes along the top of the station, in the shadow of the great heliograph mirror.
“Of which I had no part,” Doctor Holmes insisted. “My record remains clean. Didn’t even have a chance to perform a post-mortem on the poor bugger.” Holmes was clearly already drunk, despite dinner having not yet arrived, and he was apt to raise his glass in toast to even the most mundane points, from day-to-day activities to the mention of Earth itself.
Next to Provost was his apparent partner-in-crime, Mister George Fullbright, the station’s operational engineer. He was, at least technically, the station’s second-in-command behind van den Bosch, but he did not comport himself in such a manner. Instead, he assumed for himself the role of irreverent commentator on every aspect of station life that did not meet with his tastes. “If you ask me,” he said, “the airlocks get used far too liberally around here.” This rather dark statement nevertheless brought about peals of laughter from Provost and the drunken Holmes.
Annabelle watched the three men with some distaste. Typical slovenly brutes, she thought, hiding behind breeding and education. It astonished her how quality of character was so highly prized in England, yet so rarely was a prerequisite for ascending to any position of authority. Quite often, it was politics and surname that put one in such lofty places, all else be damned. Not that the Americas were much better. It was just that the British Empire was no doubt thick with competent men, yet they never seemed to find a real place in higher society, never quite managed to scrabble upwards to realms where they were noticed for their efforts. Such hypocrisy rankled.
Nathanial, however, seemed quite taken with the three men’s antics. He sat forward, engaged in what they had to say, whether it was commenting on van den Bosch’s feet or the cloying rose oil scent of the station’s lavatories. It was clear he wanted to be a part of such raucous frivolity. Here was a side of her friend she had not seen before, probably some remnant from his days at college, where such childishness was tolerated, and even in some circles, encouraged. Boys will be boys, or so the saying went, even if one was clearly middle-aged, as was this Doctor Holmes. Annabelle rolled her eyes and looked elsewhere for her entertainment.
She found it in the form of a little man who called himself Mister Avram Salt. He was in charge of overseeing that Professor Wren’s overall aesthetic tastes were properly rendered. He had no official title, but his job was clear. The station’s cleanliness and beauty were his responsibility.
“So you are who I should thank for the oppressiveness of this place?” she asked.
Salt did not smile at her jest. “That would be the late Professor Wren,” he said. “I merely oversee that his vision is realised.”
“Oh, yes,” Provost said. “If it were up to Salt here, every meal would be subject to his laws, and the basilica would instead look like a shule.”
“A wholly different sort of oppressiveness, that,” Fullbright replied. Holmes lifted his glass in a toast.
Annabelle was confused at all of this. She looked at Nathanial.
“It appears our Mister Salt is Jewish,” Nathanial said.
“Yes,” replied Salt. “A constant source of conversation, or so it would seem.” He looked squarely at Fullbright, who smiled back at him and nodded. “And a constant source of amusement, as it were.”
“Well I, for one, am glad you’re not responsible for this mess, whatever your religious beliefs,” Annabelle replied.
“Thank you, miss. I take it you don’t share Professor Wren’s vision of man’s mastery of art?”
“I don’t see it as such, if that’s what you mean. You see a shrine; I see a tomb.”
Salt sat forward in his chair. “Interesting,” he said. They spoke on artistic matters, of which Annabelle knew little but was interested nevertheless, until van den Bosch arrived, with Hague in tow.
The man was, as Nathanial had said, a pure nightmare. He had warned her of van den Bosch’s appearance beforehand, so it did not astonish, yet his description had done little justice. Annabelle caught herself staring at the man as he heaved his massive frame onto his chair, settled himself, and looked around the table. She tore her eyes away when his gaze fell on her, and she could feel him boring into the top of her head as she kept her eyes averted. Finally, the man turned away, and addressed everyone.
“I apologise for my tardiness. I assume the others will take their meals later in the cycle.”
“Indeed, sir,” Hague said, settling himself between Nathanial and Salt.
“Good. Where’s Dolan?”
“He’ll be along momentarily, I believe.”
“Excellent. Well, everyone has introduced themselves, I’m sure. Shall we begin?”
Stewards appeared and delivered the first course, an egg and potato dish with very little taste to it. It needed onions, salt, and pepper, Annabelle decided, but it was at least hearty.
“Get used to this,” Fullbright commented. “One of the great problems of having a Spaniard for a chef, aside from the language barrier, is the cuisine. There’s a fine young man named Turner who acts as his sous chef. When the Spaniard is drunk, and this is often, our meals are a little more palatable.”
“This cycle, it seems, sobriety rules the roost,” Provost said. Holmes did not toast this admission, but picked at his food.
Nathanial ate like a man starved. “I rather like it,” he said.
“Give it time,” said Provost. “You’ll come to hate it like you hate having no decent light to read by.”
“I have noticed the lighting here is poor,” Annabelle said. “Why is that?”
Bottles of wine were brought. Two bottles previously drained by Provost, Fullbright, and Holmes were cleared, and two more were put in their place.
When the stewards left, van den Bosch took up the narrative. “To answer your question, miss…” and he paused then, looking expectantly at Nathanial.
“I’m sorry,” Nathanial said. “Where are my manners? Doctor Henry van den Bosch, this is Miss Annabelle Somerset, Doctor Cyrus Grant’s niece.”
Van den Bosch inclined his head. “Miss, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. I hope you’ll excuse our actions to date. Your uncle’s reputation is known to me. Any relative of his is welcome in my house.”
Annabelle gave him her most disingenuous smile. “Thank you.”
“To answer your question there are currently no limits to individual quarters, but the mid-decks, what the men here refer to as Heaven, and the below-decks, called Hell, operate at one-quarter normal power.”
“Are your generators broken as well as your stabilisers?”
“No. The steam power necessary to operate the lights at full capacity were once used in other avenues. Now, given my recent…illnesses, I can no longer abide bright lights, and so we have never adjusted them for normal settings.”
“What were these previous avenues?”
“I’m afraid that has to remain a secret.”
2.
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The next course was glazed pork shanks, a Moroccan sausage served with dried peppers and picked onions, and canned potatoes herbed and slathered with butter, served with black bread. Salt received a small cut of beef in place of the pork, something of which Fullbright made great sport.
“I should convert,” he said, and Salt chuckled. He was a pleasant man, Annabelle decided, if unattractive. He had large eyes and protruding teeth. His hairline had receded some time ago, but had stopped its retreat somewhere in the middle, leaving a swept-back shock of curly hair that gave the impression of a man who was constantly in some extreme forward motion. Even sitting still, Salt appeared at all times to be moving ten times faster than the man next to him due solely to this illusion.
“Rabbi Feinman will be pleased to hear this. For once, our dietary customs play into our favour. It would be an original occurrence.”
“I’ve had enough swine aboard this station to last me a lifetime. Tell your rabbit to expect me for the Seder. But really, must I wear the silly hat?”
Salt took these japes in good humour. “We wear yarmulke to temple to remind us that God watches us.”
“Then it’ll be a while before I convert, for what I have planned upon my return to Earth, I doubt I’ll want God seeing any of it.”
A roar of assent erupted from Provost and Holmes, and there was another toast. The men were getting drunker as time went on.
After cleaning her plate, Annabelle sat drinking the remnants of the excellent wine the stewards had served. She made brief conversation with Hague, over what it was later difficult to recall, waiting for van den Bosch to finish his meal before continuing her small inquisition.
“Doctor van den Bosch, the stabilisers. Do you know what caused them to malfunction?”
In the gloom she caught sight of a mouth beneath the bandages, something malformed and twisted. She tried not to recoil at its sight. Van den Bosch raised a napkin to it, blotting his mouth clean of grease and crumbs before answering. “No one can say. That is why the appearance of your friend, Mister Stone, has caused such celebration.”
Nathanial looked up from his meal and arched an eyebrow. “Celebration?”
“Oh, yes!” Provost exclaimed. “Why, you’ve arrived here on the backs of angels to deliver us from the very abyss!”
Another toast.
“I’m hardly a saviour, but I’ll do my best.”
“And that’s all that can be expected,” van den Bosch replied, appearing not at all like the monster Nathanial had described, but a mentor encouraging a doubting student.
“Is it common, then, for such systems to malfunction so soon after construction?”
“It’s an insufficient explanation, Miss Somerset,” said Mr. Fullbright, “but these things do happen from time to time.”
“But so soon? Nathanial has told me your chief architect, Professor Wren, has recently passed away, and now your stabilisers have broken down, and so close to an aether vortex. It all seems a little convenient to me.”
“Miss Somerset, are you suggesting sabotage?” van den Bosch asked.
Nathanial cut in. “You’ll have to excuse Miss Somerset. She’s read too many adventure stories, and now she sees master criminals in every shadow.”
“Indeed,” van den Bosch replied. “I assure you, Miss Somerset, that there are no such goings-on here. What we have instead is overworked staff who are desperately trying to complete the station under schedule, if sadly over budget. You’re the first woman most of these men have seen in a long time, and they miss their homes. They want to be away from this place, and I don’t blame them. Professor Wren’s death, if you must know, was the result of a laboratory accident. He, too, was overworked and homesick, and no doubt this, in part, led to the accident. So you see, we have no great evil lying in wait for us here, merely mundane things which plague any man who’s been taken from his home for long periods. But you must understand, it’s no less deadly.”
“A laboratory accident?” Annabelle asked. “Was this the fire, then, that killed him?”
Silence followed. Van den Bosch rubbed his hands together, and then made them disappear entirely beneath the table. He was growing tense.
Hague cleared his throat. “Professor Wren and Doctor van den Bosch were old friends, Miss Somerset,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ve all taken the professor’s death dearly, but none more so than our administrator.”
“And what did you do with Professor Wren’s body?”
“Annabelle, really!” Nathanial whispered.
“I’m just curious, Nathanial.”
“And well you should be,” van den Bosch said, once again entering the fray. “I must say, this station must present a wonderful puzzle to someone with such an active imagination as yours. The secrecy which surrounds us must seem nefarious indeed.”
“I was thinking more about the social customs of a settlement existing outside of Earth,” Annabelle said. “I’ve seen many differing customs in my recent travels. Here, you live in a sealed community, and what is perfectly normal for Earth becomes impractical here. After all, there is no graveyard, I would imagine.”
Van den Bosch stared for a moment. “Bodies are to be disposed of immediately, Miss Somerset. Is that what you’re asking? A human corpse carries disease, and gases formed in decomposition can taint our air supply. Look around you. You will never find a cleaner, more sterile environment for workers. We must keep it that way, or the very air we breathe will become toxic.”
“So you pushed him out an airlock?”
“Annabelle!”
“Yes,” van den Bosch said, with the calm, yet patronising air of a father explaining something to an innocent child. “Now, this sort of talk is hardly fare for the dinner table. Please, let’s talk of other things.”
Nathanial shot a warning glance across the table, but Annabelle ignored it.
3.
Dolan arrived before the meal was finished and took a place next to Annabelle. He carried with him something wrapped in cloth, which he set on the floor next to his feet. His arrival annoyed Fullbright, who said, “Well, hello, Dolan. Come to see how quality dines?”
Dolan was served before he had even settled in. His wine glass was filled to the brim, and he took it up with great relish. “Oh, yes. Quality. You’ve got to love a man who thinks he’s better than the jack next to him because of some miracle of geography or birth. I’ll tell you what I’m curious to see, is how Quality plans to avert the disaster befalling this station, or how Quality’s social standing will be miracle enough to spirit him off this station, once the dying starts. Me, I’m of the opinion that death will come for Quality the same way it comes for us poor, common souls in the sweaty darkness of this place, and it will be just as horrific. The question is, how will Quality choose to die? That’s what I’m curious to see.”
“Oh, but haven’t you heard?” Fullbright asked, sneering. “Mister Stone here is going to save us all.”
Dolan turned an amused eye on Nathanial. “Oh, is that so? And how will you see to that, Professor?”
“We were just speaking on that,” Nathanial replied. “Before we went on a conversational tangent, I was going to say that I won’t know exactly what is wrong until I’ve taken a holistic view of Peregrine itself. Afterwards, I’ll begin to form my theories.”
“All well and good, but will your theories be in time to save us?”
“Of that, I’m sure. Luckily for you, Mister Dolan, your very problem lies within the very realm of my specialty. Once I’ve ascertained the problem, repairing the damage will not take long at all, assuming we have the parts and facilities for repair.”
“We do,” said van den Bosch.
“You seem very confident,” Dolan said.
“Confidence has nothing to do with it,” Nathanial replied. “Mathematical certainty is on my side. Confidence is merely an offshoot of one’s arrogance. Science has no arrogance. It simply is. I apply the principles of nature to the problem. Thus, I am its v
essel, if you’ll permit a religious metaphor. Does the hammer feel confident it can drive the nail into a plank of wood? Of course not.”
Dolan rolled his eyes and snickered, a show for the others. “Well, you’ve certainly leapt head and shoulders above me, Mister Stone,” he said. “All this talk of religious hammers and the like, and my head is swimming.”
“I don’t mean to condescend, Mister Dolan.”
“No, no. Not at all.” Dolan downed the rest of his wine, poured a fresh glass, and downed it, too. He then reached for the parcel he had brought with him, unwrapped it, and set a cylindrical device onto the table between himself and Nathanial.
Annabelle recognised it immediately, and stifled a gasp. Realisation was slower to come from the others, but when it did, it came in a storm. Several men leapt to their feet, repelled by horror.
Van den Bosch roared for silence. He then turned his wrath on the Irishman. “What is the meaning of this, Dolan? How dare you bring such a thing as this to our dinner table?”
“It’s just so you know, sir. It seems that Mister Stone isn’t the only one confident in his abilities. Someone else believes likewise, someone who isn’t content to let the vortex do its work. And don’t worry; I’ve already removed the timer. We had an hour left.”
“You could have made your point without bringing it here.”
“Forgive me, sir, but I do have a certain flair for the dramatic. And begging your pardon, it’s easier to make a point when everyone feels they’ve got a personal stake in the matter.”
Annabelle glanced at Nathanial, who was as pale as a ghost. “Where did you find it?” he asked.
“One of my men found it while we were stowing your belongings in your new quarters. It was secured to the underside of your cot.”
“My God,” Salt whispered. “An hour, you say? That would have—ˮ
“Yes, it would have been just enough time for Mister Stone to have finished dinner and retired for the evening. Likely it would have taken him while he slept. A rather grim blessing, as blessings go, but one nonetheless.”
series 01 04 Abattoir in the Aether Page 4
