series 01 04 Abattoir in the Aether

by L. Joseph Shosty

  “Oh, nothing,” he said. “More of the same. He accused me of incompetence. Again.”

  “Still no luck convincing him of letting you fire the stabilisers?” asked Fullbright.

  Nathanial shook his head.

  “Makes sense to me,” Holmes said, “if only on a purely scientific scale. After all, we’ve only van den Bosch’s word to go on. For all we know, the stabilisers are working, and he’s merely having us on.”

  “I agree it bears testing,” Fullbright added. “From there, Stone here can take a more…what was the word you used?”

  “Holistic,” Nathaniel said. “We need to take a holistic view of the station. The example I used was a medical one. Say a man goes to a doctor complaining of a brown discoloration of his gums. By looking only at the gums, the doctor might be inclined to treat simply the same, but a doctor who sees the man as a whole—ˮ

  “Knows to treat the gums would be folly,” Holmes said. “Such a discoloration will likely lead instead to a malady of the liver. Yes, I see what you mean. So, once we have confirmed the stabilisers are indeed broken, we take a look at the station as a whole and find what is wrong.”

  “Yes.”

  Holmes smiled, and his red, cherubic cheeks glowed. “Good show, Stone. Good show indeed.”

  “So how did the Juggernaut enjoy this analogy of yours?” Provost asked.

  Nathanial chuckled. “Threw me out of his office.”

  The group went up in a chorus of laughter.

  “This would be all the more hilarious if our illustrious leader wasn’t playing with human life,” Provost said. “How do we make him amenable to a plan he’s already heard and rejected?”

  “The idea is simple,” Holmes said. “Give him an alternative he finds more repugnant.”

  “Such as?” Provost asked.

  “The labs,” Nathanial said, nodding in agreement with Holmes’ plan. “Professor Wren’s laboratory, to be exact. Whatever great secret Peregrine holds, it is there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “The Urgency of a Killer”

  1.

  He didn’t move with the urgency of a killer. Instead, his bearing was much the same as it had been the last time Annabelle had seen him, that of a man who had not a care in the world, strolling with great ease through the Austrian corridors. The dorms, in fact, had not been his destination at all, and now he turned left, and then left again, putting him on the main corridor which ran the length of Heaven. Annabelle reduced her pace and waited a while before following him out into the open. Few men were milling about now, most of them having gone to dinner or down into the workers’ dorms to sleep. A mistake here, and he would discover her presence. Luckily for her, his being on the main corridor gave him few options once he passed into the basilica. She could wait a while before breaking from cover to follow him.

  She hoped Loaves would complete his search soon. If he did, she could use him to flank their man should he decide to return to Austrian or even stroll over to British by having Loaves take a side corridor, run ahead, and head off his movement. Unfortunately, there were no real dead ends in the station at all, at least not in Heaven, and not that she had seen. The only exception had to be in British, where Professor Wren’s lab ended in a dead end at Dolan’s fountain. If they could somehow herd the man that way without him disappearing again, they would have him.

  The sandy-haired fellow passed into the basilica and thankfully did not tarry. Had he decided then to take in some of the art there, Annabelle would have certainly been in trouble. Instead, he marched straight across, nodding to a fellow workman pulling a cart laden with two suits of plate armour bound for some spot in Austrian. The worker also smiled and nodded at Annabelle as he passed, and took the corner directly behind her.

  She stopped at the right-hand corridor just before entering the basilica and looked around for Loaves. The man was nowhere to be seen, nor could she tell if he had crossed over into the left-hand side yet or not.

  She turned back to the main corridor with the intent of crossing the basilica when suddenly she gasped. The sandy-haired man was walking toward her. His hands were still in his pockets, and he whistled a merry tune. She slowed down as he passed, keeping her eyes carefully averted, but kept walking forward, hoping her demeanour did not give her away. She strolled over to one of the broad columns in the chamber’s centre and pretended to explore the engravings there.

  When she risked a glance behind, he had already disappeared, but she knew where he was heading now. Her initial instinct had been correct; he had been heading for the workers’ dorms when she had caught sight of him. Somehow, he had discovered her, too, and knew she would follow him. Now that he had reversed directions and slipped by her temporarily, he could do as he pleased, knowing she could not risk chasing him directly.

  Where is that blasted Loaves? she thought. He’s picked a fine time to wander off and get lost! Loaves could shadow the man a while, and she could run flank.

  “Something the matter, miss?”

  One of Dolan’s guards―they were being posted near the entrances to British and Austrian now―addressed her. His accent, Bavarian, unless she missed her guess, was thick. She smiled and shook her head.

  “You should be in quarters, then.”

  “Of course. Thank you, sir.”

  The guard nodded his head, and Annabelle hurried back into Austrian.

  Mid-corridor, she found a stair to her right, leading down into the dorms. She emerged into a new hallway, which ran the full length of the dormitory, with several open areas off the hall. These open areas resembled what she had seen of a military barracks, with beds lining the walls, and footlockers at the end of each bed for the men’s personal effects. Raucous laughter issued from one of the rooms, but mostly they were dark, filled with sleeping men. With so many workers aboard, there weren’t enough beds, so the men slept in shifts. The bomber could be in any of them.

  She made a quick search, being careful to stay away from the room with the laughter, lest unwanted notice should fall on her. A woman down below with the men would be unseemly, and it might suggest more than she intended. These men had been without women for months, and though they had been on their best behaviour around her so far, being caught down here could bring out the worst in them.

  Her search of the dormitory yielded nothing, and she went back up the steps to resume her search. He could be anywhere by now, she decided. To go further, she would have to find Loaves and send him in to search among the men. This only had a slight chance of success, as her man was probably using the seclusion of some corner to disappear up one of the air shafts. She was almost at the stop of the steps when a hand grabbed her from behind.

  “Don’t run away yet, miss,” said a rough voice in her ear. “We wouldn’t want you to miss me so soon.”

  Annabelle had only a split second to realise the identity behind the voice before she was flung backwards to tumble down the steps. It happened so quickly she had no time to cry out. The world went a-whirl, and she landed with a resounding crack on the floor below. Pain shot up her left arm. Again, rather than cry out, she sucked air into her lungs. The sandy-haired man was on her before she could blink.

  “So, just who are you, then?” he asked. “Some woman detective, come to sort me? Is that it?” He snatched Annabelle up by her hair. He might have been a short man, but he was very powerful indeed. When he had her in range of his attentions, he gave her a good backhand across the cheek, hissing in pain as one of his knuckles ricocheted off Annabelle’s teeth.

  The blow nearly rendered her unconscious, and the pain in her arm was like she had been set ablaze from the inside. Tears ran down her cheeks, and through the inferno of pain she found the wherewithal to be ashamed that she should let this little cretin see her cry.

  When the hand snatched at her again, she tried to bite it.

  “Oh? So we’ve a fighter, have we? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to take us to some place really quiet, a
nd I’m going to work on you. Oh, yes! I am going to work on you real nice, and they’re going to find pieces of you floating in the stew pot for weeks to come!”

  This time she had the presence of mind to scream. Another blow cut it short, but the laughter down the hall suddenly changed to shouts. Men were coming. She looked up to see the bomber’s face twist in alarm.

  “Very smart,” he said to her. “Very smart indeed. You win today, miss, but don’t bother looking for me in these corridors again. I’ll certainly find you first.”

  Boots thudding on the deck sent small vibrations into the back of Annabelle’s head. The bomber tried to pull away then, but Annabelle cried out “No!” and snatched him with her good arm. She caught the front of his coverall and gripped tightly. It was a good hold, and the man grunted as he tried to pull it away.

  “Let go, damn you!” he said, voice hissing like steam.

  Annabelle’s eyes squeezed shut with the strain of holding on, but she could sense the bomber’s fear rising as sure as if she could see his face. He gave two sharp tugs, and part of his coverall came free. With that, he was gone, up the steps, and vanishing, no doubt, in the throng of workers. Annabelle gave in, then, and fell unconscious.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “A Deepening Gloom”

  1.

  “The laudanum has taken its effect. You should get some rest as well.”

  Holmes laid a comforting hand on Nathanial’s shoulder. He was right, after all. There was little left to do except return to his quarters. It was an empty gesture, after all, to stolidly sit by Annabelle’s side until she woke, especially when he had other duties. A new stack of reports awaited him. He could review them before retiring. A strange report had crossed his desk, one he had not mentioned to Holmes and the others earlier. Something was siphoning power from the main generator, and he now had three men searching Heaven and Hell for answers. Perhaps one of them had found something, and he would have a breakthrough.

  He needed a breakthrough, and soon.

  Sickbay had eight beds, each with a curtained partition. Because she was a woman, Annabelle’s bed would remain partitioned constantly. Nathanial slipped between the curtains and looked around. At the end of the room was the man they had caught trying to steal a cutter the other day, still under sedation. Holmes did not think the man was going to recover, which presented a problem, as they could no longer afford to dose him with ether.

  Nathanial was about to leave when he was reminded of the other body, the one at the other end of the room. My God, Holmes thought, it has been a difficult sixteen hours.

  2.

  They were on their second bottle of wine when word reached Holmes’ quarters about Annabelle. The doctor flew into action, with Nathanial, horrified, stumbling after him. Four men carried her in, using a bed sheet as a makeshift litter. Her elbow was dislocated, and was swollen and purple where subcutaneous bleeding had occurred. Her face was cut, and her left cheekbone was also purple and swollen where something had struck her. Her mouth bled where she had bitten through her lower lip, and the eye on the opposite side of the damaged cheekbone was black.

  Holmes ordered everyone out while he saw to her examination. With a pair of shears he cut her dress from her body, and reported to Nathanial that she had also suffered bruised ribs and various scrapes and cuts along her torso and legs, none of which was serious. He tended to the cuts and scrapes with a salve, and the elbow he wrapped with a bandage and secured it with a sling. When questioned later, the men who had found her claimed she was lying at the bottom of the stairs leading down into the workers’ dormitory. It was assumed, then, that she had slipped.

  However, when Holmes applied smelling salts and woke her, Annabelle told a much different story. She’d been following a man she had seen a few days earlier, a man she believed was Nathanial’s would-be murderer. The reasoning she gave for this was convoluted, no doubt from the delirium of pain, but Annabelle held a strong conviction she was correct.

  This news disconcerted Holmes, and he gave Nathanial a grave look. Later, when they conferred outside sickbay, the doctor told Nathanial that if this were true, she was in grave danger. She had seen the bomber’s face, and the villain would surely want to silence her before she could say anything. A discreet word to Dolan saw guards posted outside both Holmes’ office and quarters, as sickbay could only be accessed through one or the other.

  Nathanial, for one, believed her. Annabelle did not tend to employ a strict logic in her affairs, but her women’s intuition in these cases often proved true. And now, with the attack on her person, this had all but confirmed it. When Dolan arrived, Nathanial described Annabelle’s attacker. Dolan confessed he did not know anyone who matched that description himself, which was odd, given that he knew nearly everyone on the station. When Nathanial asked him to begin a search, Dolan could only shake his head.

  “Doctor van den Bosch has to agree to let me allocate men to this, Stone. I’m terribly sorry, mate. If I happen on this man meself, I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life for hurting Miss Somerset, but for the rest, me hands are tied.”

  If Nathanial believed Annabelle’s story, van den Bosch did not. He arrived with Hague and Salt in tow, and he was full of terrible bluster. He roared at Holmes and Annabelle alike, casting dire predictions about both persons’ futures aboard the station. When Nathanial tried to calm the administrator, van den Bosch whirled on him.

  “And just what the hell are you doing here, Stone? Why aren’t you in your quarters, under guard, this very minute? You are supposed to be saving this place from destruction, or haven’t you heard?”

  “My friend has been injured, and I have been charged with her care by Doctor Grant himself. What did you think I was going to do? Sit on my hands and wait for one of your lackeys to bring me a report, much like I do with this ridiculous station?”

  “I expect you to do as you’ve been instructed. More lives than just that of your friend depend on your success.”

  Nathanial refused to leave, even with Hague trying to insert his will upon the argument. Nathanial shoved the little man’s hand away when he tried to steer Nathanial from the room.

  “Sir, you will unhand me!” Nathanial cried, and the flash of anger that darted across Hague’s eyes had been quite satisfying, both to Nathanial and the watching Holmes. No more attempts to remove him were made.

  Annabelle’s story was dismissed out of hand.

  “We employ rough sorts on this station, Miss Somerset,” van den Bosch said. “Doubtless the fellow saw you following him and wanted to know why. If he got rough with you, it’s what you deserve. After all, women have no business running about Peregrine unattended.”

  Annabelle, despite being in a furious amount of pain, fought back. “He’s the bomber, I tell you. He threatened to torture me, rip me to pieces.”

  “And that makes him nothing more than an angry man, made all the angrier by your harassment.”

  Annabelle looked at Holmes and said; “Show him the letter.”

  “And what letter would that be?” van den Bosch asked.

  Holmes removed from his pocket a piece of paper, cream-colored, folded three times, and handed it to van den Bosch, who wadded the note in one massive hand and tossed it to the floor without reading it.

  “You fool!” Annabelle cried. “It’s from him, addressed to you! You know that! I saw him slip one under your door the night he nearly killed Nathanial.”

  “You saw nothing!” van den Bosch roared, and he lunged at Annabelle. Nathanial and Holmes both lurched forward, thinking the man was going to strike her, but he stopped inches from her, the brim of his great, green hat shadowing her face. Annabelle looked as though she wanted to recoil, but lying on the bed she had nowhere to go. “What you saw, Miss Somerset, was either a trickster or a harmless madman. I have been receiving such threats since this station was towed here from Earth, and so far, nothing has come of those threats.”

  “He’s hardly harmless now,” A
nnabelle said. She held up her arm as proof.

  “Well, you obviously excited him to violence. Any man is capable of murder, given the right circumstances.”

  Annabelle sneered. “Oh, well, I suppose it’s all right, then, seeing as it was just this poor, delusional woman he hurt and threatened to murder.”

  Van den Bosch stood. “I wish it were that simple, miss.” He nodded to Hague, who disappeared into the corridor outside, only to return a moment later, with six men carrying a new litter. A litter soaked in thick, blackening blood. “But unfortunately, you infected poor Edgar Loaves with your madness, and he paid a terrible price for it.”

  “Oh my god,” Annabelle whispered.

  Holmes inspected the body. His diagnosis was quick. “The poor man’s had the arteries in both legs cut,” he said. “He would have exsanguinated in seconds.”

  “Yes,” van den Bosch said, eyes never leaving Annabelle. “You told Mister Loaves your wild theory and even gave him the man’s description. After he discovered you had been injured, Mister Loaves, in a well-placed desire to bring your attacker to justice, went looking for him. Unfortunately, he found him, cornered him, and the man fought back, only Loaves did not carry a weapon, did he? Oh, no. But your man did. Loaves was dead when the men found him, you know. They said the pool of blood in which he lay was three times as long and twice as wide as the man himself.”

  Annabelle began to cry. It was a pitiful thing, and Holmes was aware then that he had never seen her do such a thing. Poor Loaves, he thought.

  “I own you now, Miss Somerset,” van den Bosch said. “I own you, and you will make yourself useful. I can’t have you running around this station as you have been, dodging the good men who have been assigned to protect you. You’ll work with Mister Dolan. He has a task in the quartermaster that will no doubt keep you occupied a good many days. Assuming Mister Stone here finds the source of our stabiliser woes, you will complete your task. Afterwards, you will be confined to quarters at all times, taking both meals and baths there as well. You will receive no visitors, nor will you be allowed to visit anyone else. Orders will be cut at that point declaring that if you are seen outside your quarters at all, you are to be considered acting contrary to the interests of this station and put to death.”