F.R. Michaels
Romilda Gunn wore black against the soot and filth of the Aerodrome. Her mind swam, haunted by the visions she’d seen over the past few months: a figure, wreathed in shadow, standing at the foot of her bed, its eyes reflecting the light of eldritch stars back at her.
Not a dream, she thought. It was Derrick, or his specter, trying to reach me.
Romilda walked the narrow causeways between the hangars, jostled by groups of rough-looking aeronauts and mechanics, lost in her thoughts until she was nearly trod upon by some clanking metal monstrosity that stomped past her, hissing steam, carrying a pallet of storage barrels toward one of the docked airships.
Romilda resumed her trek to the docking gantry disheveled but in one piece. An airship floated above the platform, moored like a whale on a leash, complete with rounded nose and pointed tail, and a sprucewood cabin slung beneath. Masts fitted with triangular sails jutted out like flippers along the fuselage, and four great fins stabilized the rear. She spied the enormous playing card painted on the tail, the Jack of Hearts, cunningly wrought but faded and chipped, just as the harbormaster had said. Romilda mounted the stairs leading up and scaled the tower.
At the top, a man in a weather-beaten frock coat sat with his boots up on the rail by the gangplank, idly flipping a throwing-knife.
“You want something, miss?” he said, without pausing his knife-play, peering at her from beneath the lowered brim of his leather coachman’s hat.
“I’m looking for Captain Finch.”
“Are you with the Air Guard?”
Romilda blinked. “No.”
“Then you’ve found him.” He touched the brim of his hat, hard blue eyes peeking out from beneath. “Alton Finch, Captain of the One-Eyed Jack, at your service.”
“Acting Captain!” came a shout from somewhere up in the rigging.
“My name is Romilda Gunn,” she said. “I’m looking for my brother, Derrick. The harbormaster said you might know him.”
Finch sheathed the knife and swung his feet off the rail. “Well, Miss Romilda Gunn, sorry to disappoint, but I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He might have joined under an alias, five years ago. Tall, headstrong, prone to getting into fights...”
Finch smirked. “You just described most of my crew.”
A small, scruffy girl scrambled down from the rigging and dropped nimbly to the gantry beside him.
“I think she means Gunny Rick,” she said.
“Get the photograph, Boom.”
The young girl dashed up the gangplank and came back with a framed picture of the crew posing in front of the airship. Finch pointed to a young man squatting in the front row.
“This him?”
Romilda squinted down at the face, her heart racing. “That’s my brother! Is he here? I must speak with him.”
Finch took the picture back and shook his head. “Gunny left the crew a few months ago, after Captain Murano died.”
“Our real captain,” Boom chimed in. “Half the crew left.”
Finch tossed her an acidic look and continued, “He and a few others joined an air-frigate headed up to the pole. Haven’t heard anything since. Sorry.”
“What was the name of the ship? When did they leave? When do they get back?”
Boom replied, “The Ophelia, the fourteenth of June, and the ship never got back.”
Romilda stood there, digesting her words. She’d held a wan glimmer of hope that Derrick still lived… that some living aspect of his will tried to reach her, not his shade.
“Has a search party been sent? Another airship?”
Finch grunted a humorless laugh. “The Ophelia was a search party. They went looking for the Talavar, which vanished back in March.”
“The Talavar was sent to search for the Five Angels, which went missing back in January,” Boom added.
“You have an airship,” Romilda said. “We could look for him. I can pay.”
Finch shook his head. “No, no, no. Three ships have disappeared already. ‘Tis a fool’s journey. We might still have some of his effects onboard, though. Maybe you could bring something back. Boom?”
The young girl beckoned with a toss of her head. “Come aboard, city-girl.”
Romilda followed her up the narrow gangplank. The airship’s interior reminded her of the crew quarters on her father’s yacht: small and functional, no space wasted, lightweight spruce and bamboo fixtures accented with metal structural braces. The only real difference she could note appeared to be an overall sense of grubby utility, and a few pockmarks on the walls that looked like bullet holes.
“This one was Gunny’s,” Boom said, opening a door barely big enough to pass a grown person.
Romilda crinkled her nose at the distilled smells of an enclosed space that had been repurposed as a junk room. She picked her way through the clutter to examine the narrow bunk with its storage space underneath, run her finger through the dust of a folding table jutting out from one wall, and peered out the tiny porthole. Romilda could spread her arms and touch both walls.
“Cozy,” Romilda murmured.
Boom snorted. “You should see where I sleep.”
Romilda crouched down and pulled open the storage locker. A meager scattering of papers cluttered the bottom, but nothing of importance.
“Did you know my brother well?”
Boom said, “We were crew,” as if that explained everything, then added, “Can I ask you something, city-girl?”
“Please… Romilda.”
“Gunny was with us for years. Why’re you here now?”
“Father forbade me,” Romilda answered, flipping through a notebook at the bottom of the locker. “But in the past month I’ve seen…”
Maybe I shouldn’t tell anyone I’m seeing ghosts.
“Seen what?”
“I’ve seen… my father’s health failing. Mother wants them to reconcile. So here I am.” Romilda blew out a frustrated breath. “Families are complicated.”
She turned to look at Boom, but the girl was gone. In the awkward silence, Romilda heard the urgent tolling of a distant bell. The airship lurched suddenly, pitching her backward. As her head slammed against the wooden bulkhead, darkness claimed her.
***
“Romie…”
Romilda heard the whispered voice, as she wavered along the tidemark of consciousness. Only Derrick called her Romie.
“Derrick?”
Romilda opened her eyes and saw a dark silhouette looming over her, peering down. Its eyes reflected an unnatural light, and its substance writhed and iridized like shadows moving through ice.
“Help me…”
“Derrick!”
The figure vanished like smoke sucked back through an opaque screen. Romilda lay on the deck, alone, looking up at the ceiling of Derrick’s cabin.
She wobbled to her feet, gingerly holding the back of her head, and stumbled out into the corridor. Loud, but distant, she heard revving engines and gunfire, and the floor lurched under her.
Scrambling from the cabin, she stepped onto the bridge and into a beehive of activity. Finch paced to and fro, barking orders while a very small man stood on a box in front of the ship’s wheel and wrestled it to his will. A tall youth wearing thick goggles and missing a hand argued with a dark-skinned woman over a chart, while another crewmember readied a long gun. Shots from below ricocheted off one of the spars, but no one except Romilda flinched. She steadied herself against the hatchway, unnoticed, holding her head.
The gunner shouldered the weapon and sighted out a porthole, murmuring, “Steady now.”
A deafening blast and a gust of smoke briefly filled the room. The gunner lurched back with the recoil, then peered out the porthole.
“Steam plume. Got their boiler. They’re losing pressure.”
Finch said, “Well shot, Mix. Now let’s shake these jossers.” To the little person at the helm, he said, “Hard to port, Mr. Villiers, we’ll lose them in the clouds.”
“Aye-yup!” The man whipped the wheel around.
The airship canted sharply, the engines roaring as it climbed. The rest of the crew braced and stood firm, but Romilda bounced off the doorjamb with a startled “Oof!”
The entire crew turned at the sound.
Finch spoke first: “Oh. Just bully.”
The dark-skinned woman glared at Romilda with eyes like thrown hatchets.
“Finch, who’s this girl?” she demanded, her voice mellifluous, with a French West African accent.
“Claws in, Khady, this is Gunny’s sister, Matilda.”
“Romilda,” she corrected him.
Khady scowled. “I mean, what’s she doing on our ship?”
“She came looking for Gunny. I told her there might be personal effects in his cabin. Evidently, she was still looking when we scrambled at the raid warning bell.”
“The ship jolted,” Romilda mumbled. “I hit my head.”
Finch said, “First things first. You’re not looking too steady there, Miss Gunn. Khady here will escort you to sick bay.”
Khady grunted annoyance but took Romilda’s arm and beckoned her along with a toss of her braids. “Come along, city-girl, let’s get your nut checked.”
She hustled Romilda down the narrow access hall to the infirmary.
“Khady,” Romilda said, still woozy. “That’s a lovely name. What does it mean?”
“It means me. That’s how names work.” Khady called into the sick room. “Redkin! You sober? Got an injured stowaway. Finch says she’s Gunny Rick’s sister.”
“Gunny had a sister? I thought that boy was raised by wolves.”
“Whatever. She’s your problem now.”
Khady shoved her into the room. Her head woozy, Romilda stumbled into a bear of a man standing with his back to the door. He turned with a grunt, towering over her, breathing a cloud of alcohol fumes.
“All right, girly, strip.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Get those clothes off, let me get a good look at you.”
“You will get no such thing!”
The big man blew out an impatient breath and reached for her coat. “C’mon, let’s not make this difficult, I ghgghh-ghhggghh-ggghhhghh…!”
Redkin convulsed as if in the throes of some violent fit. Romilda stepped aside and watched him fall like a tree, quivering.
She held up a short baton with a forked rod and two metal spheres at the end. A spark crackled between the spheres, and a wisp of smoke drifted up. “I said no.”
The impact of his fall alerted the rest of the crew. From behind her, a woman’s voice exclaimed, in a sturdy Irish brogue, “Oi! What did ye do to Doc?”
Romilda turned and spied a red-haired woman in the doorway. She wore a mechanic’s apron and her fiery hair scooped up into an unkempt bun, her face and arms were spattered with freckles and rimed in soot.
Romilda said, “This drunken lout tried to take off my clothes!”
Redkin groaned from the floor, “I was trying to examine you!”
“By undressing me? I hit my head!”
“Then tell me that!”
Finch popped up behind the redheaded woman. “What’s happening here, Seven?”
She pointed at Romilda. “There’s a strange woman on board and she’s electrified Doc.”
Finch stepped between them. “Bedside manner aside, Miss Gunn, Redkin here is our ship’s doctor, and a damned good one. Never lost a horse in his care.”
“He’s a horse doctor?”
“We do with what we have up here, Miss Gunn.” Finch held out his hand. “I’ll take that device, please. I won’t have our guests electrocuting the crew. Plus, a spark near the ammo or fuel would be inadvisable.”
Romilda handed him her baton.
“An Equalizer Electro-Wand?” Seven marveled.
Romilda nodded. “The new Mark 3, 1910 model.”
Finch passed the device to the red-haired woman.
“Lock this up. And don’t take it apart.”
Seven pouted and left.
Finch helped Redkin to his feet and said to Romilda, “Doc here can be a bit of a gilhooley when he’s got a sosh on but sober he’s a perfect gentleman.”
Redkin nodded. “Apologies, miss. Count on my best behavior henceforward.”
Before Romilda could think of forgiving him, the youth with the missing hand poked his head in the door.
“Hey, Finch!”
“Captain Finch, Dodger.”
“You’re gonna wanna come to the radio room. Air Guard, broadcasting on all frequencies.” Dodger nodded to Romilda. “And bring the princess.”
“Why me?” Romilda asked.
“Because according to the authorities, señorita, we kidnapped you.”
***
Dodger took his place in the soundproofed closet that served as the radio room. Finch and Romilda crowded in beside him, with the remaining crew clustered at the door.
Finch told Romilda, “Tell these bulls we didn’t know you were aboard. We’ll put you down at the first port, and you’ll have a grand adventure to tell at your next tea party.”
Dodger flipped a switch. The speaker crackled to life.
“Ahoy, Jack of Hearts. This is Commander Wells of the United States Air Guard. Jack of Hearts, respond.”
Finch grabbed the mouthpiece. “We’re the One-Eyed Jack, Wells, and you know it.”
A dry chuckle rasped over the speaker. “Hello, Finch. Been a while.”
“I take it those were your hornets who raided the ‘Drome and shot up my ship?”
“We weren’t the ones abducting an heiress. That’s low, even for you. I want to speak to Miss Gunn.”
At the sound of the name, Dodger’s eyes popped wide. “Gunn? Like, Bouchard and Gunn? The bank?”
Romilda nodded demurely as she accepted the mouthpiece. “Hello, commander. This is Romilda Gunn. I am afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I have not been abducted.”
Romilda locked eyes with Finch, who looked back more wary than reassured.
“I have hired the One-Eyed Jack for an expedition to find the airship Ophelia. My brother was aboard when she disappeared. Apologies for the confusion.”
Finch groaned, while the crew gasped with a single breath.
There was a crackle of static from the speaker, then a menacing, “Finch…?”
Finch swallowed. “Just like she said, commander.”
“All right, we’ll stand down. If I may say, Miss Gunn, with your money, you could have hired a real crew, instead of those throwbacks on the Jack.”
“Opinion noted, commander,” Romilda replied.
She stuck her tongue out at the handset and handed it back to Dodger, who snapped off the radio.
“So,” she said to the room at large. “Shall we go find my brother?”
***
“This is insane!” Khady said, her tone rife with rage. “You just agreed to a suicide mission!”
The crew sat around the map table, while Romilda allowed Redkin to patch her head in the surgery.
“What could I say? The Air Guard were on us like a rash.” Finch looked down at his boots. “Besides, that city-girl is right. Gunny was crew. And not just him. Richards, Fang, Suleiman… oughtn’t we search for them?”
“They left after the captain died,” Khady replied. “We who stayed are crew. We eight.”
“Seven-and-a-half, counting Mr. Villiers,” Dodger quipped.
Villiers had looped some stay-ropes over the wheel to hold the ship steady. He sat, all four feet of him, on his box, tamping tobacco into an enormous meerschaum pipe.
“It never settled well with me,” he mused, “that we didn’t go looking for them.”
“Nor me,” Seven added, twirling a lock of her coppery hair anxiously. “Some of us had friends on the Five Angels, too, and the Talavar.”
Mix stood apart, meticulously cleaning the long gun.
“You’re awful quiet, Mix,” Finch remarked. “You’re part of this crew. You have a say.”
Mix blew some residue out of the chamber before replying. “I say better to leave the dead to the dead, than join them.”
“But what if they’re not dead?” Seven asked, with some heat. “What if they’re stranded, or hurt, or been taken by the Quacks?”
Villiers lit his pipe, scoffed. “What Quebec airship could take the Talavar? Captain Singh would eat those rebel jossers for breakfast.”
“And we’re supposed to rescue them?” Khady said. “Under-crewed, unprepared, and letting some concussed posh stowaway give orders?”
“Legitimate concerns, Miss Khady,” Romilda said as she stepped into the room, her head bandaged. “But for clarity, I am a paying passenger, not a stowaway, and I do not give orders, Captain Finch does.”
“Acting Captain,” the crew said in unison.
Finch said, “To be fair to you, Miss Gunn, there is some contention among the crew on whether to proceed with this expedition.”
Romilda reached into her coat and pulled out a stack of bank notes. She placed it on the table in front of Finch. He picked it up and riffled through it.
“These are twenty-dollar gold certificates,” he said. “There must be…”
“One thousand US dollars,” Romilda said.
Dodger blinked. “You walked alone through the ‘Drome with a thousand dollars in your coat?”
“And an Equalizer. I didn’t think any of your lot would accept a promissory note.”
Khady turned her fierce eyes to Romilda. “What’s to stop us from keeping the money and throwing you over the side?”
Romilda stared her right back. “Ethical behavior, I should think. Plus, you’d forfeit the remaining payments.”
Villier’s eyebrows bobbed up. “Remaining payments?”
Romilda nodded. “One thousand now, one thousand when we get back to New York, and a third thousand if we return with my brother.”
Finch peeled his eyes from the money and turned to his crew.
“We’ll put it to a vote. But either way, we are not ditching Miss Gunn. The options are we go find the Ophelia; or we turn back, hand her over to the Air Guard, and deal with Wells.”
“Some choice,” Dodger grumbled.
“That’s what it is, Dodger. So, find the Ophelia, all in favor?”
Villiers, Seven, and Dodger called out “Aye!”
“Turn back?”
Khady and Redkin called out, “Aye!” Mix nodded.
“Acting captain gets no vote,” Khady declared, pointing at Finch.
“Fair. I’ll abstain.”
“So, a tie?” Seven asked.
Finch looked around. “Where’s Boom?”
“Haven’t seen her since the raid,” Dodger said.
Mix added, “She was up in the rigging when the shooting started.”
Everyone’s eyes swiveled to the top hatch. Redkin reached up to touch a dark fluid seeping through the seam in the trap door. Blood.
“No,” he muttered. “No, no, no, no…!”
Redkin scrambled up the ladder. He flung the hatch open and cursed.
“I need help up here!”
Seven clambered up, and together they gently lowered the limp young girl through the hatch. A red bloom soaked the back of her tunic.
“She’s alive, just,” Redkin said, as they hustled her to the surgery. “Took a round in the back, got caught in the rigging when she fell.”
They laid Boom face down on the table and strapped her in. Redkin tore her shirt open and examined the wound.
“Will she make it?” Finch asked.
“There’s a bullet in her spine. It’s not good.”
“Not the answer I want, Doc. Save her.”
“Then let me work.”
Finch backed out. Redkin closed the door.
***
Redkin emerged an hour later, hands bloody, looking grim.
“She’s conscious,” he said. “Says she can’t feel her legs.”
“The bullet?” Finch asked.
Redkin scowled. “Pressing on her spinal cord. If I try to remove it, I could kill her, and if I don’t, infection will. She needs a hospital.”
“We can’t put down now,” Khady said.
Romilda spoke up. “Why can’t we? That young girl is dying, let’s get her to a proper surgeon!”
Villiers said, “We’re in contested airspace. If we land, the Geese’ll deny us, and the Quacks’ll snaffle us.”
Romilda searched the sea of grim faces. “I don’t understand.”
Finch explained: “Quebec—the ‘Quacks’—is in rebellion against the Dominion of Canada—the ‘Geese’. The United States claims neutrality, but covertly supports the Dominion. Private gasbaggers, like us, can take Quebec airships for plunder, since it helps the Geese.”
Romilda blinked. “You’re pirates?”
“Privateers,” Villiers said. “We have letters of marque, signed by President Taft himself.”
“To Captain Murano,” Khady added. “Since he passed, our status is in question.”
Seven scoffed. “What question? The Air Guard hates us, Canada says we don’t exist, and them Quack feckers would lynch us on the spot.”
Finch spoke slowly: “Except we’re not pirates. We’re a search party, escorting a prominent US citizen.”
Khady’s dark face went ashen. “You are not serious. Those Quebecois bastards know the Jack.”
“They know Captain Murano. He’s dead. We put down, ask for help, take our chances.”
Mix spoke up, “You know what they’ll do to me if I’m captured.”
Romilda asked, “What would they do, Mister… um, Miss…?”
Mix looked down at her. “That’s just it. I’m both.”
“Our Mix is a hermaphrodite,” Villiers explained.
“And an abomination, according to the French Catholic Inquisitors,” Mix added.
“We’ll not be trading Boom’s life for yours, Mix,” Finch said. “You stay on the Jack with the others. If things get dippy, dust off and get to Dominion airspace. Redkin and I will take Boom, and we’ll bring Miss Gunn, she can vouch for us. Khady, I’ll need your French.”
“I speak French,” Romilda said.
“Of course you do. All right, Khady, stay with the ship. If we get snaffled, you’re the new captain.”
“Acting captain,” Khady said. “And we can’t crew the Jack with four people and no rope-monkey.”
“Gunny could do it,” Seven remarked. “He was near nimble as Boom. Never thought I’d miss that josser this much.”
Romilda looked down at her hands and said, “If I could wish Derrick here, I would.”
Silence greeted her remark. Romilda looked up to see the shocked faces of the crew looking not at her, but past her. She smelt brine and felt frigid air at her back. Behind her, a familiar voice whispered:
“Romie…”
She turned and stared up into Derrick’s eyes. He stood solid and lifelike for only a moment, before his face and form dissolved into a silhouette of writhing darkness. Before he vanished like a shadow in the light, he reached out a ghostly arm to Romilda, dropped something hard and heavy into her palm.
Romilda held a bloodstained bullet.
***
“We all saw that, right?” Dodger quavered.
“Gunny Rick,” Finch breathed.
Romilda felt a surge of relief wash over her. “I knew it. He is real.”
“You’ve seen that before?” Khady demanded.
“I thought I might be hallucinating, but deep in my heart, I knew otherwise.”
Seven made the sign of the cross, quivering. “Why’d you not tell us?”
Villiers picked up his pipe from where it had fallen from his mouth, stomping out the smoldering tobacco. “Because if she had, we’d’ve thought she was crazy.”
“Crazier,” Khady amended.
Redkin took the bullet from Romilda’s hand.
“Thirty-caliber Springfield. Like the Air Guard uses…”
He turned and ran to sick bay. Chairs slid back with a chorus of scrapes as the crew jumped up and followed.
Boom lay on her stomach, sedated. Redkin lifted the bloodstained dressing and gently felt around the wound.
“No bullet,” he said.
“Ow, stop poking me,” Boom murmured groggily.
Finch crouched down to see the young girl’s face. “How you doing, Boom?”
“Gunny was here. I think he pulled the bullet out of my back. His hands were so cold. Did we find him?”
Finch shook his head. “No. We were voting whether to go look for him or turn back.”
Boom said, “I vote we go. Look what I can do now.” She wiggled her toes. “Bully, huh?”
“Bully indeed,” Finch said, standing. “You heard the tie-breaker. Dodger, Khady, set a course for the Ophelia’s last known position. Mr. Villiers, man the helm. Let’s go find Gunny Rick.”
***
Khady and Dodger had estimated the Ophelia’s last position to within a twelve-mile radius near the northern tip of the Boothia peninsula; technically Dominion land but uninhabited except for occasional nomadic natives. Mr. Villiers guided the One-Eyed Jack through a narrow corridor between the Quebec rebels and Canadian airspace.
Boom improved rapidly under Redkin’s care and was up and walking the next day. Despite her pestering, Finch kept her off-duty.
They’d given Romilda Gunny’s old bunk. She found the food coarse, the accommodations claustrophobic, and the toilet facilities horrific, but abided without complaint.
It was night on the fourth day when Khady announced they would reach the target area by morning. The weather looked to stay clear and calm, and they could start searching at dawn.
“Hopefully we find them before whatever found them first finds us,” Khady added grimly.
Romilda asked, “The Ophelia disappeared searching for the Talavar, which disappeared searching for the Five Angels. But why was the Five Angels up here in the first place?”
The crew exchanged looks, then Finch said, “They went looking for a star that fell.”
Romilda’s brow furrowed. “How is that?”
Finch said, “Crews spotted a shooting star over the northern territories that hit the ground somewhere up near the magnetic pole.”
“The Five Angels headed up that way,” Villiers added. “Captain Billings thought they’d take a look. Apart from scientific interest, meteorites are valuable, containing rare and exotic metals. Bringing one back could fetch a fortune.”
“Or lead the foolish and greedy to their deaths,” Khady said.
“Little ray of feckin’ sunshine, aren’t ye, Khady?” Seven remarked.
Dodger slid down the ladder from the top hatch, breathless. “Something’s not right. I can’t determine our position.”
Khady scoffed. “It’s a clear night, just sight the North Star.”
“It’s gone.”
Finch stood. “What do you mean ‘gone’? How did you lose a star?”
Dodger beckoned with his head and clambered up the ladder to the crow’s nest. Khady and Finch followed, as did Romilda out of curiosity.
The crow’s nest was a circular balcony up above the Jack’s gasbag. Frigid winds buffeted their faces as they looked up into the sea of stars above their head.
“Polaris should be at four degrees azimuth and seventy degrees elevation,” Dodger said. “But it’s not there.”
Romilda thought the sky looked normal enough; beautiful, in fact, in the clear upper air. She knew how to locate the North Star: find the Big Dipper and follow the two pointer stars to Polaris. Except, she couldn’t find the Big Dipper.
Khady glared into the sky and grunted in frustration. “Dodger’s right. These are not our stars.”
Finch pulled a speaking tube out of its sheath and spoke into the funnel, “Mr. Villiers, it appears we are lost. Full stop, descend to two hundred feet, and drop anchor.”
“Aye-yup,” came Villiers’ reply.
Romilda heard the engine slow to idle, the wind abating as they lost velocity. Vents along the fuselage spouted super-heated air in plumes of steam. The One-Eyed Jack descended smoothly.
“Look,” Romilda said, pointing. “I’m sure that’s Jupiter… and it’s gone.”
Dodger added, “I can see Cassiopeia, fading in and out.”
“It’s like we’re seeing different skies reflected through slow ripples in a pond,” Khady mused.
Finch said, “Dodger, keep your eye where Polaris is supposed to be. If it fades in, take sights and lock our position.”
“Aye, captain.”
Khady opened her mouth to correct him, but Finch silenced her with a gesture. “Just let me have this one, Khady, please?”
Khady relented.
Finch said, “Let’s get below. We’ll anchor here until daybreak and see what sort of sun rises.”
***
Day broke with excruciating brightness. They pulled anchor and brought the Jack up to four thousand feet. Mix and Seven scanned the area with spyglasses.
“That’s the Boothia peninsula dead ahead,” Mix reported through the speaking tube. “We’re on course.”
“Of course we’re on course,” Khady growled. “I laid it in.”
“The binnacle’s doing pirouettes,” Villiers remarked. “We must be almost on top of the pole.”
“We’re at the north pole?” Romilda asked.
“North magnetic pole,” Finch explained. “Compasses are useless here, but that means we must be close.”
Seven’s excited voice came from the tube. “Smoke!”
Romilda jumped to her feet, her heart pounding.
“I see it,” Villiers said, peering out the windscreen with his own enormous spyglass.
Romilda couldn’t contain herself. “A signal fire? That must mean they’re alive!”
“Could be them, or smugglers, or someone else not so happy to see us,” Finch said. “Half ahead, Mr. Villiers. I want everyone else at arms, just in case. Miss Gunn, can you shoot?”
“Well, my Uncle Alistair held shooting parties at his country estate during pheasant season…”
There was a brief pause, then Seven said, “She can help me with the engine.”
***
“I’m getting a signal,” Dodger called from the radio room.
Finch slid up beside him as the wireless hissed and sputtered. Dodger twisted dials and flipped switches as an unintelligible voice stuttered through.
Then from the speaker, a woman’s voice said, “Ahoy!”
Finch took the handset. “Ahoy, unknown contact, this is the One-Eyed Jack, identify yourself.”
There was a pause, then the voice from the radio said, “Finch?”
Finch knew that voice. “Fang?”
A stream of agitated Cantonese spewed from the radio, then, “Finch, what are you doing here? Turn back!”
“We came looking for the Ophelia. We have Gunny Rick’s sister aboard. What’s your position?”
“We’re grounded, with survivors from four different crews, but you have to turn back!”
“After we rescue you,” Finch said.
“Please, please, please turn back! It’s not safe! It’s…”
Finch jumped and Dodger yanked off his headset when the radio suddenly screeched as if some inhuman voice screamed into the transmitter. The sound boomed not just from the radio, but from all around the Jack.
Mix’s voice shouted from the speaking tube: “Get us out of here now!”
“Do it, Mr. Villiers!” Finch said.
Villiers pushed the lever full-ahead, then shoved it forward one more notch to a hand-written setting that read “SLAM IT!”
Back in the engine room, Seven bellowed, “Hang onto something, city-girl!” then she slammed a lever forward as far as it would go. The engine responded with a blast of steam, the propellers whirling to a roar. Romilda grabbed a handhold and hung on as the airship leapt forward, surging ahead as if the Devil himself chased her.
On the bridge, the crew peered out the windscreens in terror and disbelief.
All around the airship, vast inhuman appendages broke through the clouds, reaching for the One-Eyed Jack.
***
“Evasive action!” Finch shouted.
Villiers wrestled the wheel as the ship buffeted through the air in a series of bounces and zigzags; the arms grabbed empty space. Redkin and Boom bounced off of the bulkheads like billiard balls as they ran to the bridge.
“What’s happening?” Redkin asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Finch said breathlessly. “But we’re doing a dash and need someone in the rigging. Boom, you fit?”
“Try to stop me,” she said.
“I’ll go with her,” Redkin said.
“Whatever you do, don’t look back at what’s after us.”
They scrambled up the ladder and through the hatch.
A riot of clawed limbs groped blindly from the sky, reaching for the fleeing airship. A break in the clouds revealed a vast segmented body with eyeless, birdlike heads at either end. Mix watched in horror as the grotesque entity pursued, twisting convulsively through the air, morphing into geometric shapes and back; like watching a writhing centipede through a kaleidoscope.
Then one of the flailing limbs whipped toward the crow’s nest. Mix ducked as the hooked claws shattered one of the masts and tore through the gasbag.
The Jack lurched and shuddered; falling from the sky.
***
Back in the boiler room, Romilda and Seven rattled about like pennies in a tin can as the ship shook and dropped.
“What’s happening?” Romilda shouted over the noise.
“Sounds like the gasbag’s been breached!”
“We’re falling?”
“The bag holds separate gas cells,” Seven explained. “If enough are undamaged, we can do a soft landing.”
“And if not?”
“Then t’was nice knowing ye, city-girl…”
Finch’s voice boomed from the speaking-tube: “All aboard: brace, brace, brace!”
The airship cabin hit the ground with a shuddering impact and slid. Windscreens shattered, masts shivered, and the Jack slew around until it fetched up in a narrow ravine and crashed to a stop.
***
“Romie…”
Derrick’s voice whispered against a roar of gushing steam and the ringing in her ears.
“Romie, get up…”
Romilda opened her eyes against the thick steam that filled the boiler room, gushing from a ruptured pipe. For a second, she saw Derrick’s spectral form pointing to a hole in the fuselage, then dissipating in the steam. She forced herself to her hands and knees, and saw Seven sprawled against the controls and dials, unmoving. Romilda crawled to the red-haired woman. She tried to drag the mechanic out the opening but lacked the strength to move her.
From outside, she heard running footsteps approach.
Romilda found her breath in the scalding steam and called out, “Help us!”
“In here!” someone yelled outside.
Human figures appeared in the hole, dressed in torn and weathered clothing. A slender Asian woman with a bandage covering one eye ran through the breach. She grabbed Romilda by the collar and pulled her out of the wreckage with surprising strength.
Romilda gasped and coughed in the frigid air. She pointed back toward the Jack.
“Seven!” she cried.
Another rescuer, a man with a ragged beard, jarred to a stop. “Seven? There are seven more trapped in there?”
“Not what she means,” the Asian woman said as she darted back in.
She quickly returned, dragging the unconscious redhead out and away from the wreckage. Seven stirred and coughed.
“Thank you,” Romilda said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Fen Geung, but everyone calls me Fang.”
***
On the bridge, Finch quickly checked himself for damage. Apart from some cuts and bruises, he discovered he was still in one piece.
Khady, uninjured, helped him up. “On your feet, Finch.”
Villiers sat slumped over the ship’s wheel, a stripe of blood running from hairline to chin.
“Not one of my better landings,” he groaned.
Finch told him, “We all walked away, wee man. It was your best ever.”
Dodger emerged from the radio room; hair tousled, his shirt torn, but unhurt. He pointed out the broken windshield at a small group of people coming around the wreck of the Jack.
“We got company.”
“Are those the people we came to rescue?” Finch asked.
“Good job, us,” Khady said.
“That’s Fang,” Finch said. “And the one next to her looks like Billings. They have Seven, and Gunny’s sister.”
Mix emerged from the smashed crow’s nest, and the sturdy safety harnesses had served Redkin and Boom well. They extracted themselves from the tangled rigging with help from the newcomers.
Finch and the crew met the ragged group of survivors in front of the wreck of the One-Eyed Jack. Fang led the group. She and Finch locked gazes for a long moment, before she ran to him and wound her arms round his neck. They kissed for what felt like forever. The moment finally broke, and she stepped back, slapping him so hard he nearly spun around.
She spewed some rapid-fire Cantonese invective, then said, “Alton Finch, you chuzzlewit! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” he replied, rubbing his face.
“We told you to turn back! This place is an airship graveyard!” Fang pointed at the sky. “You’ve seen Scylla!”
“The thing that chased us? What the hell is it?”
“We don’t know, but it smashed up our ships and killed half of us. We call it ‘Scylla’.”
“From The Odyssey,” Romilda chimed in. “A monster with many reaching arms.”
“We know. That’s why we called it that. We think it’s attracted to the Artifact.”
Finch shook his head. “What artifact?”
Billings, the man with the ragged beard, spoke: “The shooting star, the thing that fell to Earth, was no meteorite. It was something alien. Something dangerous.”
“We can’t stay in the open for long,” Fang said. “Our camp’s nearby. Bring what provisions you can carry: we’ll tend the wounded and answer your questions then.”
They gathered the materials from the wreck of the Jack and made a furtive dash to the survivors’ camp. During the trek Seven sidled up next to Romilda and slipped something into her coat pocket. The Equalizer Electro-Wand.
“Just in case,” Seven whispered to her. “By the way, I made a few improvements.”
“A few what?”
***
The survivors’ camp comprised a ramshackle cluster of shelters built from parts of the crashed airships, covered over with a stretched canopy of doped canvas sheets cut from wrecked gasbags and camouflaged with sticks and litter to make them invisible from the air.
Romilda looked for Derrick at the camp but could not find him.
Seething with impatience, she cornered Fang. “I came to find my brother. Where is he? Where is Derrick?”
Fang looked back at her blankly. “Who in the Sam Hill is Derrick?”
“Gunny Rick,” Boom said from where Redkin restitched her back wound.
The survivors fell silent at Derrick’s name.
Romilda looked around in alarm. “What? Where is he?”
Fang forced herself to meet Romilda’s eye.
“He’s with the Artifact.”
“Take me there.”
***
None could mistake the location of the impact zone. The falling star had gouged a rut of shattered rock a mile long that ran like an arrow to a fissure punched into the side of a mountain. They made their way carefully over the broken terrain but stopped as someone called out a warning. The group hid under an outcrop as Scylla’s shadow passed overhead. Tense minutes passed as they watched the clawed limbs drag across the ground. One of the arms found the outcropping and groped underneath, perilously close to where Romilda and Seven pressed their backs against the rock wall, holding their collective breath. Romilda carefully slid the Equalizer out of her coat pocket. When the clawed appendage reached for her, she jabbed the Electro-Wand into its center. Instead of an angry zap, the device discharged with a blinding flash and a crack like a pistol shot. The acrid scent of ozone filled the air as the reaching arms whipped back and out of sight. Scylla’s discordant screech echoed overhead, and the shadow withdrew at speed.
Romilda stared at the still-sparking rod.
She turned to Seven. “Improvements?”
Seven grinned and shrugged.
They made it the rest of the way across without incident, stepping into a cave the size of a cathedral. The rock had melted and reformed, lining the interior space, with formations that flowed and changed into odd geometric patterns as Romilda watched. The frigid air smelt of burnt stone, and space and time inside the cavern appeared to ebb and flow like a tide. Glimpses of stars and alien landscapes faded in and out along the rock walls. She found the effect disorienting to the point of nausea.
At the epicenter of the cavern sat an enormous, impossible machine. It looked at first like an irregular crystal, with countless facets and moving parts visible under the translucent surface. Wheels and cogs and pistons moved in a slow ballet of purposeful motion, while indecipherable symbols appeared and faded on circular crystal disks, sometimes floating in the air around the device.
On a platform at the base of the device, Derrick Gunn sat cross-legged, hunched forward and head down, his hands inside the alien machine.
“Derrick!” Romilda cried.
She ran to her brother, but two men intercepted her and held her back.
The burlier of the two said, “Don’t, miss, it isn’t safe!”
“But that’s my brother!”
“You won’t help him by putting yourself in danger, my dear,” said the other man.
Billings caught up. “This is Dr. Cullens and Professor Byrd,” he said. “They’re astrophysicists, we brought them on the Five Angels to study the meteorite, only we found this instead. If anyone can help your brother, it’s them.”
Romilda forced her eyes off the sight of her brother to gaze at the machine. “This is the Artifact? It looks like a giant clock.”
Professor Byrd nodded. “That’s our theory. That it is a chronograph of some non-human manufacture, not dissimilar to the ones airships use for navigation.”
“Chronograph?” Romilda asked.
Dr. Cullens nodded. “Navigators use the elevation of celestial bodies to determine latitude; for longitude, you can do the same, provided you know the exact time of day of where you started. Every airship has a precise chronograph to navigate longitude.”
“That’s what we think this is,” Byrd said. “Only, instead of just measuring time and space, it bends and shapes them.”
“A means of navigating through multiple dimensions,” Cullens added. “Only, it’s damaged, and out of control, twisting reality into knots. The effect had begun to spread, until your brother intervened.”
Byrd said, “We’ve tried to study it, even to work it somehow, but if anyone gets too close, they get caught in the anomaly and can’t escape.”
“Then your brother volunteered to run in, and he was able, with our instruction, to slow the spread of the chronostorm, but it only works with his direct intervention.”
Byrd said, “This artifact was never meant to be wielded by humans. If he releases his control, the effect could shred time and space itself.”
“It’s like he’s stepped on a land mine, and must keep his foot on it until everyone gets clear,” Cullens said. “We can’t get him out, and even if we could, who knows what this thing will do?”
“He learned to use it,” Romilda said. “This is how he communicated with me. He somehow bent time and space to reach me.”
Byrd shook his head. “But we can’t reach him.”
“I can,” Romilda said, and walked into the undulating fractal waves before anyone could stop her.
Romilda felt the increasing flow around her as she reached Derrick’s side. His hands tightly gripped what seemed like controls shaped in cryptic, continually morphing geometry.
Romie. You came.
Yes, Derrick, I came.
I used the Artifact, I learned to project myself to find you, to contact you.
It worked. I’m here, Derrick, with your old crew.
Romie, I wanted you to bring help, to get the others out, not to get trapped by the Artifact with me.
I’ve come to take you home, Derrick.
We’re stuck here, Romie. I can’t shut this thing down. I can’t let go.
Derrick, remember Father’s old Pope-Toledo motorcar? Sometimes the thing to do with a balky machine is to give it a good kick.
Romilda pulled out her Equalizer Electro-Wand, thumbed the charge to full, and jammed it among the Artifact’s clockworks. The device discharged like a bolt of lightning. The Artifact sparked with the surge of power, falling dark and still, but only for a moment. Its mechanisms spun to life again, glowing with an eldritch light, brightening until it reflected a blinding flash from every surface.
For a split second in time, Romilda saw it all: every moment of existence across the universe spread before her in a kaleidoscopic vista, the birth of stars and the deaths of galaxies, individual atoms at the cores of supernovae and vast unending voids of space. She saw the incandescent heart of God, and the lightless, loveless depths of Hell. And she saw herself, an infinitesimal ember of consciousness on a tiny world in an unremarkable reach of space, a single grain of sand on an endless, indifferent beach.
The Artifact stirred. Multidimensional cogs and wheels turned in a precision measured in quantum lengths, damaged but still functional. It grew and morphed into a billion swirling fractal shapes, then vanished as if fallen through a hole in reality itself.
The distortions abated, like a stormy sea falling suddenly to calm.
Derrick and Romilda lay unconscious amid the broken rocks, what was left of the Equalizer melted into slag and Romilda’s arm charred to the elbow.
***
Romilda awoke to the sounds, sights, and smells of great industry around her. She tried to sit up only to find her head light and her body unspeakably heavy. A heavy bandage wrapped her right arm, the damage blissfully numb, but otherwise she felt intact.
She spotted Seven nearby, looking dirtier than usual, bandaging a cut on her palm. The red-haired woman noticed her and turned.
“Well, top o’ the morning to ye, city-girl,” she said, then called out, “She’s awake!”
“What happened?”
“You goosed the Artifact with that gizmo of yours. The damned thing shut down, powered back up, and fecked off.” Seven grinned at her. “Now, Miss Gunn, are you ready to go home?”
“How? I thought we were stranded.”
“There’s a dozen airships lying about, all torn up by that giant floaty fecker,” Seven said. “We’ve gathered the parts and built a new one out of the wrecks.”
Romilda blinked, feeling a seedling of hope blossom in her chest. “Why couldn’t the survivors do that before?”
Seven scoffed. “They didn’t have me.”
“Or the Jack’s undamaged boiler,” Fang remarked, walking in from outside. “Besides, Scylla would have wrecked anything we built. We’ve been watching the skies; wherever the Artifact went, it took that monster with it.”
“How long was I out?”
Fang said, “Six days.”
“And Derrick?”
“According to Doc Redkin, Gunny’s stable, but comatose. We wonder if the Artifact still has a piece of him, somewhere in the cosmos.”
“Derrick will come back to me,” Romilda murmured. “He always does.”
Seven bounced up and down with excitement. “Anyhow, can ye walk, city-girl? Y’gotta see this.”
Together, Fang and Seven helped Romilda out of the ramshackle infirmary and into the open air.
Dominating the sky was a patchwork gasbag with a tangle of improvised rigging and mismatched stabilizer fins. Beneath, the cabin hung like a hobo’s mansion of slapped-together parts, in front of a steam engine that looked, literally, like a train-wreck. Finch stood before it all, directing the finishing touches and admiring the handiwork. He noticed her and turned.
“Ah, Miss Gunn, you’re awake.” He waved his hand to the improvised airship. “So what do you think?”
“I’m amazed and horrified in turns. What’s it called, ‘Frankenstein’s Balloon’?”
“We took some canvas panels from the Ophelia and rearranged the letters. She’s called the hOpe.”
“Says ‘hOp,’” Romilda said.
“The ‘e’ is on the other side. We ran out of space.” Finch grinned. “But the important bit is it’ll fly. You and Gunny are going home.”
“Home,” Romilda said wistfully. “After all this, I can’t see myself going back to lawn parties and cotillions.”
He glanced down at her with mischief in his eye. “I don’t know what a ‘cotillion’ is, but if you’re serious, Miss Gunn, would you consider becoming an airship pirate?”
Before Romilda could answer, Khady came up to them.
“Everyone’s ready,” she said, then added, “Captain.”
Finch turned and saw the assembled survivors, standing as straight as they could, watching him expectantly.
Fang spoke: “What are your orders, Captain?”
Romilda nudged him. “Go on, Captain.”
Finch turned and looked up at the clear blue vault of heaven.
“Let’s see where the sky takes us.”