Arabella and the Battle of Venus

by David D. Levine

  … and stared stupidly at them. There was simply no means to specify the problem in sufficient detail for Aadim to produce an equivalent solution for three masts. It had taken many, many hours of trial and error, going over the same basic idea time after time after time with very slight variations, to produce the maneuver she now clutched in her sweating hand. To expect even the marvelous Aadim to do the same in five minutes or less was clearly an impossibility.

  Nonetheless she must attempt it.

  Clutching the paper in her teeth, referring to it frequently, she set Aadim’s dials and levers as best she could. But the maneuver was so unusual, indeed unprecedented, that even her best was inadequate—the controls simply could not represent the maneuver she required. She knew without a doubt that if she pressed Aadim’s finger upon the chart right now, with the levers set as they were, Aadim would give her nothing but a very simple looping path which any competent French gunner could easily predict.

  She hesitated, with her sweating finger resting upon Aadim’s cool wooden one. What she asked of him was far beyond any automaton, even an astonishingly sophisticated one.

  But then, Aadim was not just any automaton.

  “We desperately need your help,” she said aloud, looking directly into Aadim’s unseeing green glass eyes. She swept away the chart of Venus’s airlanes which was clipped to his desk—a space which lay in the view of at least three of Aadim’s lenses, scattered about the cabin—and replaced it with her own written sailing-order. “We need a course that drives hard along Victoire’s starboard side, then yaws and rolls simultaneously while reversing pulsers. The goal is to turn the ship about in as small a space as possible, to put us in position to fire the great guns at the enemy’s pulsers. We have less than five minutes.” She paused, swallowed, then said in a small voice, “Please do your best.”

  Then she closed her eyes, held her breath, and pressed down upon Aadim’s finger.

  A click sounded from deep within his cabinet, followed by a high-pitched grinding whir she had never before heard from him. It sounded as though his gears were turning far faster than they ever had before—faster, indeed, than they had been designed to withstand. A smell of hot metal and whale-oil came to her nose, and Aadim’s wooden torso and arms vibrated as though from an ague. But his face—his lovely face, carefully carved and delicately painted in a marvelous approximation of life—remained as impassive as ever.

  After an endless time, which was probably less than two minutes, the bell sounded, and Arabella bent in the air to read the result from Aadim’s instruments.

  The sailing-order represented by the dials and number-wheels there seemed at first to be completely incoherent, and Arabella’s heart sank. Nonetheless, she snatched a scrap of paper and a lead pencil from the drifting detritus and scrawled it down. As her pencil flew, she pictured each specified turn of sails and pulsers in her mind, feeling the flow of air along the imagined ship as though along her own body … and it began to make a certain kind of sense. Though each individual action seemed arbitrary and aimless, she could feel a sort of flow in the whole. This sailing-order was unprecedented, bizarre, and incomprehensible, but somehow she knew that it would work as requested.

  She finished transcribing it and examined her work. Her rapid scrawls were horrifically slipshod, but legible enough, and as near as she could tell they accurately recorded the sailing-order Aadim had invented. That the two of them, she reflected, had invented together, with the help of the greenwood box.

  Suddenly, impulsively, she grabbed Aadim’s shoulders and kissed him upon his wooden lips. He did not react in the slightest. “Thank you,” she said, and sprang to the door.

  * * *

  When Arabella came on deck she found that Diana had matched course and speed with Victoire, moving ahead of the French ship as both drew nearer Royal Sovereign. The crippled English flagship now lay dead ahead, nearly within cannon range, while Victoire hung above Diana’s stern like some huge, gleaming, malevolent moon. The thought of those twenty-four great guns trained on Diana’s pulsers, with only the etiquette of frigate’s immunity as a shield, sent a chill down Arabella’s spine. If the French captain chose to disregard what was, after all, little more than a gentleman’s agreement, he could destroy Diana with impunity at any time, perhaps the moment she showed the slightest sign of turning to attack.

  She shook off her presentiment of disaster and ascended to the quarterdeck, where she presented the sailing-order to Captain Singh. Fox, nearby, craned his neck for a better look at the paper but did not shift from his station.

  For a long minute the captain studied the paper, and Arabella began to fear that he would reject it out of hand. “This is … extraordinary,” he finally said. “What combination of settings—?”

  “If we are going to attack,” Fox interrupted, speaking low as though Victoire’s captain might hear him otherwise—which might indeed be the case, so close were the two ships to each other—“we had best begin our turn now.”

  Never had Arabella seen Captain Singh so uncertain.

  “In answer to your question,” she said, “I simply asked Aadim to do his best.”

  At that the captain’s jaw firmed with decisiveness, while at the same time his eyes softened with warm sentiment—an extraordinary expression she had never before seen on any human face. “Put some distance between us and Victoire, Mr. Fox,” he said, “but do not reveal our full capabilities as regards speed. Keep us on her starboard side. When we are in position to attack, turn and put one shot across her bow, then immediately employ this maneuver at maximum speed.” He handed the paper over to Fox. “It should put us into position for a solid broadside on the vulnerable spot between her pulsers.”

  “Pulsers ahead! Cheerly, now!” Fox bellowed. Only then did he read what was written on the paper.

  “You will remain here,” Captain Singh said to Arabella as the ship surged ahead beneath them. “Your navigational services may be required.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Fox’s eyes widened as he read the paper. He kept reading. His eyes widened further. “Sir?” he inquired, looking up with raised eyebrows.

  “You will follow the sailing-order exactly as written.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He did not seem persuaded, but he turned to Cotterell. “Ready one bow-chaser to fire a shot across the enemy’s bow, and the great guns to fire a broadside targeted between the enemy’s pulsers, each at my command.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Cotterell said to Fox, then shouted, “All gun crews, action stations!” As half the men on deck crowded down the forward ladder, he saluted Captain Singh. “It has been a privilege, sir.”

  “Make that broadside count,” Captain Singh said, returning Cotterell’s salute. “We will be unlikely to have an opportunity for a second shot.”

  “I will do my best, sir.” Then he departed, following his crews to the gun deck.

  Captain Singh straightened and placed his hands behind his back. “We are committed now,” he said.

  So quietly did he speak that Arabella was not certain whether he was addressing her, or only himself.

  * * *

  Diana pulled gradually ahead of Victoire, though Arabella could feel by the thrum of the deck beneath her feet that the men at the pulsers were not exerting themselves to their utmost. The deck seemed remarkably deserted, with almost every man at the pulsers, the guns, or aloft in the rigging; only a few waisters dashed here and there, keeping the lower sails on the mainmast in trim. The sounds of combat all around seemed to be dying away—were the other ship-to-ship battles playing themselves out, or was it merely Arabella’s concentration upon the immediate action to come? She could not say.

  Brindle brought up a harness for Arabella—a leather belt with stout straps, ending in hooks, which she used to fasten herself to the quarterdeck. Now she, like Fox and Singh, stood with her feet pressed to the deck as though by gravity, secure against even the most vigorous maneuvers. The maneuver upon the sheet, she
knew, would be vigorous in the extreme.

  In the tops, the Marines readied their rifles.

  Arabella kept glancing between Royal Sovereign ahead and Victoire behind. Diana must get well ahead of the French ship, so as to build up speed for her final pass, but not so far ahead that Victoire would have time to fire upon her during her run; yet she must attack Victoire before Victoire could fire upon Royal Sovereign. It was a delicate balance, and Arabella could not tell what the proper distance might be.

  Captain Singh, though, could. “You may begin your turn,” he said quietly to Fox.

  Arabella’s mouth suddenly went dry.

  “Strike the jib!” Fox cried. “Brace all up on a larboard tack! Ready the bow-chaser!”

  Majestically Diana turned, looping around until she had completely reversed herself and faced Victoire nose-to-nose … close enough that Arabella could see airmen milling about on the French flagship’s deck. What were they thinking of Diana’s actions? Would the French captain fire upon her before she could attack, or would honor stay his hand?

  Captain Singh drew himself up straight.

  He looked down the length of the deck, up into the mainmast rigging, down to the port and starboard masts. His eyes missed nothing.

  He paused, considering.

  Then he took a breath, turned to Fox, and spoke one single word: “Attack.”

  “Pulsers ahead! Smartly, now!” Fox bellowed. “Fire bow-chaser!”

  Diana leapt forward with a great surge that pressed Arabella firmly against her harness. Simultaneously, with a ringing bang, the bow-chaser sent a single shot speeding across the air ahead of Victoire’s bow.

  Victoire was far from unprepared for this eventuality; she reacted instantaneously, firing her great guns with an ear-shattering boom. The French ship vanished behind a cloud of fire and flame; a moment later a flight of cannon-balls shrieked through the air …

  … and the shriek passed well abaft of Diana’s quarterdeck! The great effort of the men at the pedals, combined with the unexpected advantage of Fulton’s improved propulsive sails, had given her a burst of speed that Victoire’s gunners had not anticipated.

  They would not be so lucky again. And Victoire could fire a broadside every hundred seconds.

  But in less than half a minute, still driving forward at the maximum speed of the Honorable Mars Company’s very swiftest ship, they were alongside Victoire—too far aft for her great guns, and on the starboard side where her swivel-guns no longer functioned. Victoire did her best to turn and follow, but though she was nimble for her size and weight, she was not that nimble.

  Snipers in Victoire’s tops, and a few small bow- and stern-chasers, fired upon Diana as she passed, but the damage was minimal.

  Diana kept pushing ahead at her best speed, and soon came abreast of Victoire’s churning dual pulsers. As soon as she did, Fox, who had been studying Arabella’s paper for the last few minutes, began calling out the apparently irrational commands which Aadim had devised. “Back pulsers! Set the jib! Strike the spanker!” he cried, and “Sheet home main royals and courses!” and “Brace larboard-t’gallants up on a starboard tack!” and other such nonsense. Though the individual words made sense, they had likely never before ever been uttered in these combinations on any working ship, either in the air or at sea, in all of human history.

  But though Fox’s commands seemed pointless, Diana’s gallant airmen—including, Arabella was proud to note, the Venusian waisters she had helped to train—obeyed them with swift precision. And with the ship’s rapid passage through the air, the peculiar shape of the sails soon sent her into a tumble—a wild, whirling tumble, corkscrewing through the air while simultaneously turning her bow to starboard.

  It was a dizzying, disorienting maneuver, and seeing and feeling the sun and sky and smoke and wrecked ships spin about so crazily gave Arabella’s stomach fits. It seemed to go on for ever—though it was really less than a minute—but it did eventually end, and at the end of it they were facing Victoire’s spinning pulsers at nearly point-blank range.

  “Fire!” cried Captain Singh.

  The command was immediately repeated down the length of the ship—Fox to Cotterell to Gowse and the other gun-captains—and in a moment a terrific boom erupted from her bow as all twelve great guns fired in perfect unison, sending the whole ship jolting backward beneath Arabella’s feet.

  Fastened to the deck as it was, her leather belt jerked hard at her stomach, driving the wind out of her with a whuff. Singh and Fox, having more experience in action, rolled with the blow and were not so discomfited.

  But even they were not prepared for the second blow that followed, as Victoire’s hydrogen stores exploded, sending a gigantic blast of sound, flame, and scorching heat rushing across Diana’s deck. It passed in a moment, but left chaos in its wake—sails and rigging scorched and smoking, men crying out in surprise and pain, others calling pitifully from the open air where they had been blown overboard. Even worse was the wave of wreckage that followed, a deadly hail of wood and metal fragments that sent every one ducking for cover. Arabella shrieked and curled into a ball, feeling her back and arms pelted by sharp hot metal bits that left her shirt in smoking tatters.

  When the rain of metal subsided and she looked up, she saw that Victoire had vanished completely, replaced by an expanding ball of smoke and flaming wreckage. Though most of the smallest, fastest-moving pieces had already passed Diana, many larger ones were still heading in her direction, and though they were slower their speed was still considerable. The smell of burnt wood, powder, and flesh was strong and nauseating, and her ears, still ringing from the explosion, were filled with screams and the crashes of pieces of wreckage colliding with each other.

  Even in the midst of this chaos, a shriek from the mainmast head was so horrible that it drew Arabella’s attention. It was Midgeley, the young signal officer: one of the larger metal fragments had struck him in the chest. The injury did not seem nearly bad enough to justify the intensity of his screams, until she realized that the spreading dark patch on his blue uniform jacket was not blood but sulfuric acid! The bit of wreckage must have broken the bottle of acid which he carried in case it should become necessary to destroy his code-book.

  Midgeley tumbled in the air, clawing at the spreading stain, which smoked and blackened as though his body were burning from within—and screaming as though that were the case as well. No one nearby was able to help him, concerned as they were with their own injuries and safety.

  Captain Singh, horrified at the gallant young midshipman’s pain, unhooked himself from his harness and sprang directly to the mainmast head, sailing unconcerned past flying chunks of twisted metal. “Alert the surgeon!” he called down to Fox as he took the young man in his arms. “Tell him I am bringing an acid burn to him.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Fox called, then shouted the captain’s message down the scupper to the cockpit.

  “The code-book!” Midgeley cried through his pain. “The code-book!”

  “Ashby!” Captain Singh called to Arabella. “Find the code-book and secure it. I will take Mr. Midgeley to the surgeon. Mr. Fox, the ship is yours. Bring her out of danger as swiftly as you may.”

  “Aye aye!” Arabella and Fox replied in chorus.

  * * *

  Arabella, not so confident as her captain, made her way by short leaps to the base of the mainmast, then up its length. She found herself frequently compelled to pause, dodge, and backtrack in order to avoid the large smoldering hunks of wood and metal which were now crashing into the ship; they were less frequent and slower than the initial blast of small pieces, but those that did strike still struck with deadly force. She hoped that Fox would be able to bring the ship out of the area of wreckage soon.

  Eventually she came to the mast-head, where she found Midgeley’s code-book and telescope tucked safely into the gap between the trestle-tree and the mast. She had feared that the code-book’s chemical-soaked cover might have ignited from the hea
t of Victoire’s explosion, but though it smoked slightly and stank still more than it had before it seemed intact. She did not open the book, but tucked it under her arm.

  Before returning to the quarterdeck she thought to use Midgeley’s telescope to look around, in case there might be some obstacle nearby which could be seen from this vantage and not from the deck. But even as she extended the glass and raised it to her eye, her attention was drawn by a most peculiar sound from the quarterdeck below. Quite unlike the sounds of pain and despair coming from the wounded men all around, this was a sound of anger—an animal growl like an enraged bear.

  She shifted her glass to the source of the sound. It was Fox, who was holding his own glass to his eye with one hand, aimed forward; the other hand was clenched in a trembling fist. To her surprise he flung the telescope from himself, sending it tumbling away with the rest of the detritus, and called through the scuttle “Pulsers ahead! Smartly, you b—ds!” Then he leapt to the wheel and turned it hard to starboard.

  What in all the worlds could he possibly have in mind? To drive Diana forward into the thick of the flying wreckage? Arabella turned her own glass forward, seeking whatever Fox had seen to prompt this behavior.

  She did not find it at first. But suddenly a bit of deliberate movement, quite different from the drifting, colliding pieces of flotsam that otherwise filled her view, caught her eye.

  It was a gig—a small, lightweight airship—moving swiftly away from the largest chunk of Victoire. Its destination seemed to be another French ship, not very far away and still fairly intact. Four French airmen labored at its pedals, directed by an officer in a torn and charred jacket; two midshipmen manned the sails. The gig also carried three passengers, who were not engaged in running the boat. One of them looked like …

  No. It could not possibly be.

  Arabella focused her telescope and peered hard through the detritus-strewn air. Could it be?