Escapement

by Jay Lake

  Regardless of Ottweill’s demands concerning SS Great Eastern, Her Imperial Majesty’s government had chartered SS Wallachian Prince to carry the expedition from Gosport to Acalayong on the Gaboon coast at the easternmost arm of the Bight of Benin, where Africa and the Wall met.

  They met Wallachian Prince at the docks of Gosport. She was quite a large ship, some four hundred feet stem to stern, iron-built with three massive boilers and triple screws. She had no masts and so could set no canvas if the coal were to run out or she were to be stranded overlong. A large freighter, built to carry machinery across the Atlantic, she was nothing like the ships of al-Wazir’s naval career.

  When he and Ottweill arrived in another steam omnibus, the pier at Priddy’s Hard was crowded with freight, far more than al-Wazir would have expected even that enormous civilian ship to be capable of taking on. Much of it was the sort of heavy dead weight that rendered supercargoes bald and trembling while still in their youth—rails for the narrow-and wide-gauge lines to be laid, metal slugs for fabrication of parts or devices as needed while working at the Wall’s face, three small locomotives.

  “Is there another ship?” he asked as they stepped off the vehicle. Sailing with that great lot of junk down inside the hull didn’t appeal at all.

  “No.” Ottweill’s voice was sharp, his body trembling as they stood out in the sharp September wind. Al-Wazir could tell that the doctor was working up to another explosion. “The troops have their own quarters. Four hundred and seventeen in our company we will have shipping as civilian passengers, in the event that all the men and boys make the dock on time. No second sailing for latecomers will there be. The rest have gone before.”

  “I was thinking of the materials.”

  “Oh, that.” Ottweill waved a hand. “Trivial. Aboard we tell them to put it, aboard they put it. Sailors you must under—” He cut himself off with a sidelong look at al-Wazir. “Civilian sailors, chief petty officer. It is all for the money, with them. Shillings and pounds and debits.” He spat. “No vision or purpose they have. Besides, coming down from Kent the other steam borer is. They must load that anyway.”

  This time al-Wazir exploded instead of the doctor. “Have you gone and lost your bloody mind, you great earwig? Your steam borer weighs ten times what yon locomotives do, and is far too big to be lifted into the hold.” How had he missed that detail?

  Because he wasn’t part of Ottweill’s supply train, of course. He merely lived at the end of it. This was like arguing with a purser.

  “Look at the ship.” Ottweill was clearly confused. “Fit in it all will.”

  “Not without they cut the deck off first to load it. Then, even if they did, how will you get it offloaded at Acalayong?”

  “However they load it here, but in reverse. Not my problem is this.”

  “We’ll be lucky if they have a pier there,” said al-Wazir. “Your first project will be building a port to accept this.”

  “Oh, no,” said Ottweill. “A team was sent two years ago just after the great waves, to dredge the river and build the pier. Good roadbed from the waterfront to the Equatorial Wall we should have, and a crane at the dock.”

  “Then I’ll be shutting up. But still, mind you we won’t be carrying any of that off the ship by hand.” Another thought occurred to him. “How will you be getting the steam borer down here from Kent, anyway?”

  “It can be broken into pieces for shipment.”

  Al-Wazir still did not believe this. “In the two days we have before sailing?”

  “If it is late, on another ship we shall have it sent.”

  He could estimate the odds of that happening.

  Still, the doctor was sufficiently persistent, not to mention barking mad enough, to get what he wanted.

  SS Wallachian Prince was loaded without incident within the pair of days before their scheduled sailing, much to al-Wazir’s amazement. The supercargoes were busy. They didn’t leave room to pack in something the size of the doctor’s third steam borer.

  Al-Wazir stayed away from that business. It made his air sailor’s gut queasy, to see all that heavy gear loaded into something meant to stay afloat. Instead he visited certain shops in Gosport and Portsmouth to make sure he was properly equipped to deal with a thousand restive men.

  The fuzzy wuzzies didn’t worry him. He wasn’t too worried about the stranger things that lived above, either. They were not going up onto the expanses of the Wall, as Gordon’s ill-fated expedition had nor as Bassett had navigated those heart-aching spaces where God’s Creation touched the heavens.

  Al-Wazir was worried most about Ottweill’s crew, both aboard Wallachian Prince and later at the tunnel head. They’d not been picked for their skill at surviving without murder or mayhem. They’d also not been broken down under some chief’s lash and barbed tongue until the fight in them had been turned against sea and air and Chinese foe. This crew wasn’t prepared for the months and years they’d spend living together in tents at the foot of a place that could turn down the corners of the most stoic and unthinking mind.

  So he trusted the manifests to be correct about the rifles and ammunition and hundredweights of salted beef and all the other things pursuers worried themselves into early graves over. Instead al-Wazir bought a selection of coshes and saps, for the men he’d prefer to fight from behind, and some French naughty books to distract the boys, and his own sets of locks and chains to which he’d hold the only key, in case he needed to bind someone to a tree and leave him there beat bloody for a while to think about his purpose in life.

  All variations on the sort of gear he’d kept aboard ship over the years, hidden from inspection of course, just as every chief did. For the ones who wouldn’t listen when you tried to tell them, and didn’t take savage thrashings from their crewmates to heart.

  This was different. He wasn’t sure he knew how to control so large a group. The ropes division aboard Bassett had been small, never more than sixteen common seamen when the ship was at full company. Airships ran with tight crews, under rules that looked far more like the sailing rigs out of his grandfather’s time than the orders of the deck on any steamship afloat. There was a reason they were different services within the Royal Navy.

  He was going from less than a score of men to something more than a thousand once they were all settled at the Wall.

  Al-Wazir would need men to aid him, and need them badly. So he bought bribes as well, tobacco and rum and more of the French items, such as playing cards and little stereoscopes.

  Those helpers he’d have to find first, and thrash early, and hope he caught some of the worst troublemakers under his own wing.

  Wednesday, September 17, 1902, SS Wallachian Prince sailed with the tide, slipping out of Gosport just after the noon hour to make her way into the English Channel, bound for the Wall.

  Threadgill Angus al-Wazir, uncomfortable in his civvies, stood near a rail with hundreds of cheering men, watching them bid farewell to England. So far he’d found that not a man among Ottweill’s crew had been to the Wall. Only a few of the sailors had even glimpsed it from aboard ship.

  Gosport and Portsmouth slipped away. As the deck rolled ever so slightly underneath his feet, al-Wazir found himself wishing mightily to be in the air, in uniform, and in command of his men. This berth was like herding seagulls.

  But it was the Wall. No matter who killed whom on the trip south, so long as Ottweill remained alive and intent on his purpose, the ship would arrive, she would be unloaded, and they would be cutting into the heart of the world.

  All that being true, he found no little satisfaction that the third steam borer had not arrived in time for loading. Let the other two go on ahead, let them be unshipped by other men. He wouldn’t have to look at those giant metal cock-tips waiting to cut into the world. He could just follow them down the tunnel, concerning himself with apes and fuzzy wuzzies and all the foolishness that Ottweill’s sailors and railroadmen and engineers could concoct.

  And that was
a chief petty officer’s job, after all.

  The Channel sparkled in the midday sun, birds following Wallachian Prince in a swirling crowd of mindless greed. He was at sea, where he’d started as a boy. The joy of a stout wind and a good bow wave made up for a great deal.

  CHILDRESS

  The corridor beyond was just as she’d remembered—too narrow, too small, cramped in all dimensions, and damp. There was a sailor at the next hatch, a common seaman from the cut of his clothes. He bowed and scuttled away.

  Not knowing what else to do, Childress followed him. She wanted to find the captain. She wanted to know where she was going and why.

  China, of course, but even that puzzled her. How had the vessel gotten to the North Atlantic? The only open seaway from the Atlantic to the eastern hemisphere of Northern Earth was through Suez. The Royal Navy would hardly have allowed a Chinese submarine to pass through the canal.

  And of course, the Mask Poinsard had to ask the questions, in her manner and form. Not Librarian Childress.

  She straightened her back and stepped through the next hatch. She resolved that she would listen closely to the sailors, and see if she could begin to make something of their strange language.

  “Please,” said the captain, who stood to her right. He was in a room slightly larger than his cabin. A tea service had been set out on a folding bamboo table. “Come in.”

  She stepped in and accepted the chair he offered. She also noted that a crewman armed with a pistol took station at the door. Did she really present such danger that they’d risk a firearm here? Childress could imagine what shooting the hull might do to the ship. Though perhaps the iron would cause the bullet to ricochet, and kill several of them in one effort.

  “He guards me, not you,” said the captain quietly. “Without a word of English, unfortunately for him. But I neglect the courtesies. I am Captain Leung Kwak of the Beiyang Navy, serving in the Iron Bamboo fleet. I have the honor of commanding Five Lucky Winds for His Celestial Majesty.”

  Childress answered with a single regal nod, not quite trusting herself to speak. She had to remember how the Mask Poinsard carried her arrogance like another skin. She had to remember this man had just killed everyone around her, for all that they were holding her prisoner. She had to remember this man’s golden voice meant nothing.

  Leung returned the nod. “And you are the Mask Poinsard, late of the fast packet Mute Swan.”

  This was it, the moment of active deception. She would cast aside Christian virtue and any pretense at being a lady if she answered in the affirmative.

  The alternative was inconceivable.

  “Yes.” Childress kept her voice cold. Though the questions clamored within her, the less said, the better.

  This was much, much worse than a faculty meeting. At that thought, part of her wanted to shriek with laughter.

  “Were you not . . .” He paused. “Were you not informed of our arrangements?”

  The arrangement of slaughter? she wanted to demand. Childress packed that thought away for later consideration when she was alone. “Let us simply say that I am surprised.”

  Something in his face closed slightly. Enough to set him leaning away from her, all the way at the back of his chair. The disappointment was obvious.

  What in God’s name was he on about?

  “You show remarkable calm for a woman who was not expecting to be taken off.”

  “A Mask faces much, Captain Leung.” She had to cede him some ground in this conversation. “I confess distress at the death of my beloved servant.”

  He nodded again. “The woman killed by shot with whom you were sitting when I came aboard. I regret her death as an exigency of combat. As for the rest, again, my apologies. We understood that you were to have had your favorites at the bow to be spared. Since no one was present but you and the servant, we followed our part of the bargain through.”

  They had meant to kill me, Childress thought. The whole scheme became apparent in those few words. The Feathered Masks had bargained Poinsard to the Chinese, allowing Childress and the crew of Mute Swan to be killed in a way that left no blame on anyone but the perfidious eastern devils. Perhaps the Silent Order would have been assuaged by her death under such circumstances.

  But the Mask Poinsard had not received the proper dispatches. Or she’d been incapacitated too early to execute her wishes. In either case, Childress was chilled to both heart and bone.

  “There was miscommunication.” She didn’t have the heart for the sort of petty gamesmanship that seemed to have delighted the Mask Poinsard, so she left it at that rather than trying to seek rhetorical advantage over the captain.

  “Are you still committed to our purpose?”

  She could only say yes, and guess her way in from there. “Of course, Captain.”

  He relaxed. She got the distinct impression that Leung was forcing himself not to glance at the armed sailor standing watch. “Are you familiar with the concept of a political officer, Mask?” he asked in a pleasant tone. “Please, be pleasant and speak with some warmth so we do not appear to be plotting misdeeds.”

  She tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come. “He can scarcely imagine that I harbor the capacity for misdeeds which could disturb such an extraordinary vessel as this, sir.”

  “You would be amazed. I take it that you do not know of political officers?”

  Childress forced a laugh. “No, I am afraid not.” Though it was rapidly becoming obvious to her what he meant, she didn’t want to give him satisfaction.

  “Let us say that while I am in command, I am not fully in control. The Beiyang Navy is a force under much stress, the Iron Bamboo all the more so.”

  “I am surprised he has not met with an accident,” she said sweetly. That was pure Poinsard.

  “It is difficult for a man to fall overboard from a submarine, madam. And he bravely stayed below during the assault on Mute Swan lest there be any unrest among my men.”

  Childress turned and favored the political officer with a small smile. It was her best talking-to-deans expression. He appeared confused.

  “Do not overplay your hand, Mask.”

  “Of course not.”

  Leung smiled now as well, this one genuine. “Then know that we embark on a dangerous action. Iron Bamboo ships can pass beneath the ice which caps the Northern Earth. That is a slow, dangerous process, with little tolerance for error of any kind. Even with our air stored in tanks and our electricks properly charged, we must surface at least every three days. This is late in the year to find air holes along the northernmost portions of our course.”

  Childress examined her nails a moment, as she imagined Poinsard might do in a time like this. “Should I ask to be put ashore?”

  He laughed softly. “You are an amusing woman. Please, confine yourself to my cabin, this wardroom, and the head, which lies beyond. Do not loiter in the passageway. The men will give you the proper respect or their feet will be beaten. All know this, except possibly him.” Leung’s eyes flickered toward the political officer. “I will speak to you when I can. You will be served your meals in here by my steward. Though I have very, very little to offer you, if there is something you desire that can be found aboard Five Lucky Winds, I will make it yours.”

  “Writing material,” she said firmly. “A deck of cards if you have one, and reading material in English. Or any European language, I suppose.”

  “I will see what can be done.” Leung rose, bowed from the waist, then shouldered past the political officer.

  That one, a little man dressed in seaman’s clothes, smiled at her, said, “Hello,” and made the sign of the white bird with the hand that did not hold the pistol.

  SIX

  PAOLINA

  She had only thought that Karindira’s home was a city. It had been ten, perhaps twenty times the size of Praia Nova, with walls and paved streets and stone houses crowded shoulder to shoulder amid which the little troglodyte women had passed about their errands.

 
; At the time that seemed enormous.

  Ophir, though . . . Ophir was a city. Not solely of the Brass, thank God, or she would have been betrayed simply following Boaz through the streets. Even those marvelous mechanical men were but a pale grace note on the symphony that was Ophir.

  The city clung—the only word for it—to a vast ledge that projected from a soaring cliff on a Muralha’s face. This offered a relatively horizontal surface about a quarter mile deep and several miles long. The buildings ranged in a multitude of styles, from broad-pillared facades reminiscent of the Armory of Westmost Repose to high-porticoed marble structures with peaked roofs and pale fluted columns to catch the sunlight in a bright stone fire to crystal towers with metal skeletons within that glowed like vast mechanical candles. All manner of lesser styles of building were spread among them—shacks of driftwood and salvage lumber, low stone buildings that would have fit in anywhere, odd mismatched structures whose builders had moved on.

  The streets were crowded with more people than she’d ever seen. The throngs of Karindira’s city paled by comparison, the little tribes and villages through which she’d passed becoming so many shrunken fireside circles in contrast to this mighty reach of Creation.

  There were Brass, of course. This was unmistakably their city. Most walked with a swagger far more insolent than Boaz even at his most irritable and uncertain. Others cleared the way, stepping to the side or simply reversing direction. It was as if each Brass were a little moon, drawing tides among the sea of people through which he swam.

  But there were others, too. Humans, some pale and fair, others with skin dark as the inside of a cave and ivory eyes gleaming within faces that contained their own shadows. There were near-humans as well, tall hairy men who looked much like the enkidus of Praia Nova with their gaping nostrils and sloping brows; tiny cousins of those, slender apes with intelligent, girlish eyes and narrow faces. She saw thin men brown as carob beans, who wore linen wraps and headdresses clipped on by lapis bands made to look like coiled snakes. They seemed little more than shadows when they turned away. There were several of another race much like Karindira’s people, save these had orange skin the color of sunset and eyes that constantly wept black tears. Winged creatures with a rude and savage look to them, mad yellow eyes shifting as they stalked the streets. Even a few other mechanicals not of the Brass race—a giant crystal automaton, thirty feet or more tall, with a barrel-shaped head and flaming eyes, that towed a wagon loaded with mewling kits waving tiny swords and spitting on passersby.