By Fire Above_A Signal Airship Novel Page 23

  Bernat stopped in front of Corne, looked him hard in the eyes, and said, “Not yet. We may need to question him further. Patience, man, patience.”

  He might as easily have let the others make up their own minds, and held himself blameless. But might that temptation not be the next test, in some ways more difficult than the first? If it was, then he had passed again, and was well on his way to regaining himself.

  He smiled at the thought.

  “You have it?” Josette asked, when he came near.

  He took the map out and, careful to keep his back to Private Khirklov, so the man wouldn’t see what Josette was so interested in, laid it out over the steps of the stairs. Josette, Elise, and Jutes gathered round as he pointed out the building.

  “That’s poor Mr. Uche’s dairy warehouse,” Elise said. “You remember it, Josie?”

  Josette nodded, and went up the steps to knock on the false floor panel at the top. No answer came, and Josette seemed hesitant to knock again. “What’s taking them so long?”

  “Hope it ain’t a Vin patrol outside,” Jutes said, staring up and trying to see through the gaps in the planks.

  “More likely an afternoon liaison,” Bernat said, which was met by a scowl and a punch in the arm from Elise.

  “A liaison?” Josette asked. “I hope not. At this time of day, any resistance activity is likely to be spotted.”

  Elise blushed and cleared her throat, and Jutes only stared at his feet, while Bernat tried several times to say something. He finally managed to spit out, “Oh. I thought you knew, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Knew what? Mentioned what? What’s going on here? If there’s a resistance operation taking place, I damn well need to know about it!”

  “No, it’s…” Bernat sighed. “Heny and Pesha. They’re, you know, an item.”

  Josette blinked several times. “What kind of item?”

  “For God’s sake,” Elise broke in. “They’re lovers.”

  But Josette was no closer to enlightenment. After seeming to run the possibilities around in her mind for a while, she asked, “With whom?”

  “Each other!” Bernat said.

  “What … but … how is that even possible?” Josette asked. Bernat had never seen so much confusion written on her typically stony face, not even during the most chaotic and bewildering moments in battle.

  Elise patted her daughter’s shoulder and said, “Oh, Josie. Don’t be such a bumpkin.”

  “You knew?”

  “Everyone knows, Josie. Everyone in town knows. Everyone’s always known.”

  “Save one, apparently,” Bernat said.

  “But … no…” Whenever she was on the verge of understanding it, Josette’s mind seemed to eject the possibility with ballistic force. “That doesn’t happen!”

  Jutes had been skootching backward, so slowly that it was hardly noticeable, but he was now far enough away to turn and walk briskly to the opposite side of the room, where he sat down and pointedly looked in another direction.

  “You’ve been in the army for how long, and this is the first you’re hearing about this sort of thing?” Bernat asked.

  “Of course I’ve heard of it! I’ve known dozens of … them. But they were all men. That’s different!”

  Elise only sighed and shook her head.

  “Heny can’t be…” Josette’s expression shifted from skepticism to horror. She leaned forward, saying in an alarmed whisper, “She’s seen…” She swallowed hard. “She’s seen inside me!”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation,” Bernat said, stroking his chin, “the event couldn’t have been half as erotic as I’m imagining it. Ow!” He reeled from being hit by Josette and Elise at the same time. He rubbed both his arms. “So why was she looking in—”

  “None of your goddamn business.”

  Bernat put his hands up in surrender. “We shall speak of it no more. At this rate, I’m not sure I’d survive the conversation, anyway.” He retreated from Josette and Elise, and sought comfort next to Jutes, saying, “There are days, Sergeant, when I wish I were not half so observant as I am.”

  Jutes looked up and took a deep breath. “But in, eh, light of yer being so observant in, eh, this particular area … I was wondering if I could ask the favor of, eh … I mean to say, sir, assuming you know that I’m…”

  Bernat put a reassuring hand on the sergeant’s shoulder and said, “I won’t tell a soul.” In truth, he hadn’t even been certain about Jutes until that moment. “Though—and I’m sure this is none of my business, but when has that ever stopped me?—I must ask if you and Gears…”

  “Were just friends,” Jutes said.

  “Right.” Bernat sought in vain for another topic of conversation. When he couldn’t find one, he despaired, and was only saved from having to die of embarrassment when the false panel opened and Pesha stuck her head down.

  *   *   *

  JOSETTE’S SMILE NEVER deviated, never even twitched, as she explained the plan to Heny and Pesha. The Durumite uprising would attack the magazine from several directions, splitting the mob to make it easier to handle. Once the guards were killed or captured, the various mobs would form a perimeter and hold off the Vins until the magazine could be breached and a fuse set. Tools and muskets would be dropped to them at the beginning of the operation, and Mistral would stand by to provide support and covering fire as needed. With muskets in their hands and an airship over their heads, even the untrained mob would make an effective fighting force. Or, failing that, at least an effective distraction.

  With tomorrow seen to, Josette turned her attention to today, handing out weapons to her mother, Jutes, and Bernat. “We have to be clear of the cottage before we signal for our lift out,” she said to them. “It might be several minutes before Mistral can turn and come to us, so be prepared to hold off a patrol or two, and to get onto a roof if necessary. When Mistral comes in, we’re going to lash ourselves together, Bernie to Jutes and Mother to me. The ship will have to pull up hard as soon as our weight is on it, so we have to go together, and anyone who isn’t on the ladder when she rises will be left behind.”

  They all nodded.

  “If anything goes wrong,” she said, to Bernat and her mother in particular, “hold on wherever you can, and trust the line to do the rest. There may be shooting as we go up. Ignore it. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway. Just hold on, follow my instructions without hesitation, and don’t look down. Understand?”

  Bernat gave another stiff nod, and her mother hugged her. Josette wasn’t sure how to respond to the embrace—even when her father was alive they hadn’t been the sort of family that went in for that kind of thing. She returned only a light squeeze and tried to pass off her impassive expression as intent focus for the task at hand.

  She went to the back door and stood by it. She put her hand on the knob and took a deep breath. “Okay. This is all going to happen very fast. Stay together and be ready for anything.” She opened the door and sprinted out, stopping in the garden to establish a bearing on Mistral.

  But when she looked up into the clear blue sky, there wasn’t an airship to be seen.

  14

  “WHAT DOES IT mean?” Bernat asked, when they were back inside, the door barred and the curtains drawn.

  “It means we’re buggered,” Jutes suggested.

  “Perhaps the steamjack gave out and they were blown off station,” Josette said, more to herself than in answer to Bernat. “Or they were forced to land. I can’t think of any other reason Mistral wouldn’t be visible.” She could think of several other reasons, in fact, but didn’t want to entertain them. So many of them involved her ship exploding.

  “So what do we do now?” Bernat asked.

  She didn’t have to think. “I worked out signals with Emery. An orange rocket will inform them that we’ve made contact with the resistance. Depending on their response, we’ll know whether Mistral will be here to support the attack.”

  B
ernat asked, “And if Mistral isn’t going to be here, and there isn’t going to be an attack, what’s the plan to evacuate us from the town?”

  That question brought on a snort from Heny and a nasty look from Pesha.

  “We don’t have one,” Josette said. “All we can do is hunker down, wait for the Vins to drop their guard, then sneak out and make our way home.” She was speaking to Bernat, but her eyes flicked to Pesha, who couldn’t have looked more betrayed. “And we’ll lend whatever support we can to the resistance, while we’re here.”

  “I’ll have someone set off your rocket,” Heny said, looking equally betrayed, but resigned to the situation.

  “Someone has to watch for the answering rocket, too. Someone with a pocket watch, so they can note the time.”

  Heny nodded. “It’ll be done. Now you lot better get below. The Vins have been on edge since we snatched that prisoner. If a patrol comes by and sees the shutters closed, they’ll break down the door to see what we’re hiding, and then you’ll have gotten us all killed for nothing.” As she stooped to lever up the trapdoor, she added at a mutter, “For nothing.”

  *   *   *

  MISTRAL WAS JUST outside effective cannon range and closing slowly on the Vin ship. An atmosphere of breathless expectation and anxiety permeated the air around exactly one person aboard: the acting captain, Egmont Hanon. The rest of the crew were quite subdued, for Mistral had been just outside effective cannon range for the entire goddamn afternoon, and no one but Lieutenant Hanon thought they could bring the Ayezderhau to action before nightfall.

  The chase had begun auspiciously enough, with Mistral narrowing the gap to only two miles during the forenoon watch, then to one and a half in the next hour, and to one and a quarter in the next. Yet every time it seemed that victory would soon be within reach, the Vins squeezed a little more power out of their supposedly damaged steamjack. Every time they gained, Hanon had ordered a little more power from Mistral’s steamjack—just enough to close on them—and every time the mechanics had tried to talk him out of it. But he’d stood his ground, or only compromised a little, until they were at full power—full power from a steamjack that could barely be trusted at half.

  Ensign Kember had reported to Hanon four times since Mistral rigged for action, and each time he seemed even more confident than before, until his conviction bordered on lunacy. Now, from her station aft, she heard an order being sent up from the hurricane deck. She couldn’t make it out with the noisy steamjack in between her and the relaying crewman, but she got the gist when the steamjack’s whine rose to a higher pitch.

  “Goddamn him,” Kember said as she went forward. She knew she ought not to disparage her commander in front of the crew, she knew the captain wouldn’t, but she also knew that Ensign Kember would go on doing it, however bad an officer it made her. “Goddamn that man.”

  She came around the boiler to find Private Grey stepping up steamjack output by the unusual method of running a relay between the turbine inlet and the governor assembly. Grey ran to the aft end of the engine and her wrench flashed out to adjust the bristling array of steam nozzle chokes, then she dashed forward—a dash made particularly speedy by virtue of mortal dread—to adjust the coil-spring pressure on the governor. On a healthy steamjack, she could make one adjustment to each and have the leisure of entire seconds to spare in between, but Mistral’s jury-rigged turbine would tear itself apart if not carefully shepherded through the operation.

  With her attention fixed on that absurd dance of impromptu engineering, Kember didn’t see Chief Megusi until she almost tripped over him. He was crouched between boiler and turbine casing, his hands moving around steam manifold pipes as he muttered to himself, “Goddamn solder’s gonna melt at this rate, and then where’ll we be? In goddamn pieces.” He looked up. “Sir! Beg your pardon. Didn’t see you there.”

  “What the hell’s happening?” Kember asked.

  In the brief time he’d looked away from it, the pipes between boiler and turbine had begun to clank, and he swore furiously as he fixed his attention back upon them and set to his adjustment. “Sorry, sir,” he said, making some small effort to speak in an even tone, but not daring to look away from his work again. “Lieutenant Hanon ordered ‘halfway between full and emergency power.’ He thinks it’s something in the way of a compromise, sir, though of course I would never presume to know what’s in my captain’s mind.”

  “Certainly not,” Kember said. Except, perhaps, in this case. In this case, that was most certainly what was in Hanon’s mind. It violated one of the first rules they’d taught in her Principles of Aerostatic Engineering course: that no compromise can be struck between reality and what you’d prefer reality to be.

  “It may not seem it from the difference in airspeed,” Chief Megusi went on, “but at this power the blades are spinning twice as fast as at full power, and the steam pressure’s that much higher, too. I wouldn’t even care to put a figure on the extra wear to the engine, but it’s a hell of a lot, let me tell you. We already ran her harder than we ought to have, for so long that I’m surprised she hasn’t gone up already.”

  He was interrupted by the steamjack itself. It made a peculiar, lilting whine that rose in volume and ended in a sharp pop. Everyone along the keel, mechanics included, froze in place, expecting that the whole thing might explode at any moment. When it didn’t, but only resumed its already troubling sounds, they all took a collective breath—a breath that might have been more soothing, if it hadn’t consisted of the noxious air which the steamjack was now continually venting into the keel.

  “Engine needs a rest,” the chief said, “not more of this. If she catches fire, with our bags full of inflammable air … Well sir, I’d say we’re doing the Vins’ job for them.”

  Kember nodded and said, “I’ll see what I can do about it.”

  She went down the companionway ladder to the hurricane deck and lowered her goggles against the chill wind. Ahead, the Vin ship was right where it had been, steaming straight into Vinzhalian territory with a tailwind to help. Which meant Mistral, when she finally gave up the chase, would have to run against the wind to return to her station. So for every hour she spent in this futile chase, she wasted two more on the return—more than that, actually, because they would have to reduce power. Remaining at present power wouldn’t get them home any faster, since being on fire tended to slow a ship down.

  She stood beside Hanon and saluted. “Sir. The mechanics have concerns about the steamjack at this level of power.”

  He didn’t return her salute. “If the Vins can take it, and their engine belching black smoke, it’s all the more harmless for us.” When she didn’t answer back, he looked at her and grinned, or at least forced a grin. “No cause for alarm, Ensign. In my old blimp, we opened the throttle all the way, from the moment we unmoored until the moment we landed.”

  “Respectfully, sir, Mistral is not a blimp. And apart from the danger, we’re needed at our assigned station. The battalion must either attack or march home tomorrow morning, and if these winds hold, we may not return in time to support them. It doesn’t … it doesn’t look good, sir.”

  “And what would it look like, if we spent that much time off station, and returned with nothing to show for it?”

  Kember wanted to say that if they didn’t turn around now, it would look like a bunch of dead infantrymen, but she restrained herself.

  “No, we must press on,” Hanon said, staring at the enemy as if he could slow them down by force of willpower. “We must press on, and we must come home with a kill. An aerial kill forgives all sin. They don’t teach that in any classroom, Ensign, but it’s a fact.”

  Indeed, that had been the reasoning at every stage of this idiotic chase. The farther they followed, the greater the need to come home victorious, and the greater the justification for following farther still.

  “I don’t mean to harp on the matter,” she said, in her best effort at diplomacy, “but the mechanics are very
doubtful of the steamjack’s ability to tolerate the strain for much longer.”

  “Well of course they are,” he said. “Mechanics are doubtful of every damn thing that threatens to give us an advantage over the enemy. But you must risk something to gain something. Come on, now. I’ll just have a word with them, if you can’t keep order in the keel by yourself.”

  “Sir,” Kember said, and followed him up the companionway.

  Lieutenant Hanon walked as far as the condenser assembly and stopped, seemingly waiting for the mechanics to salute him. The chief did so without looking away from his work, but Grey could only spare the attention to nod her head respectfully as she ran back and forth.

  “Ensign Kember tells me you’ve got a case of nerves,” Hanon said, and smiled amiably. “Take heart. If our engine is this strained, their engine must be rattling itself apart by now. Just a little longer and we’ll find them at a dead stop, ready to surrender at our first gun.”

  Kember looked to the mechanics, both of them grave and pessimistic, but neither willing to contradict a superior. “We’ll do our best, sir,” Chief Megusi said.

  Megusi’s tone should have conveyed what his words could not, but it was lost on Hanon, who smiled and said, “That’s the spirit, Gears!”

  Though the turbine shook, and the boiler roared, and the airscrews buzzed, it somehow seemed that the entire length of the keel had gone deadly silent at this last word. All the crew within earshot stared at him. Even Chief Megusi looked up, staring with wide eyes, until an ominous sound from the unattended boiler drew his attention back to it.

  Hanon, for his part, noticed nothing amiss. Indeed, he seemed rather proud of himself for knowing the correct nickname for a chief mechanic aboard a chasseur. “Well, carry on,” he said, then turned and went back to the hurricane deck, whistling a merry tune as he trotted down the companionway.

  Kember watched him disappear below the keel catwalk, and knew that someone would try to kill him.

  *   *   *

  THE VINS KICKED in Heny’s door in the afternoon.