Steamed (7 page)

“That you were a scoundrel, rogue, and the worst sort of adventurer,” I said, indignant that my inner workings seemed to be wholly at odds with my brain. For some inexplicable reason, the confounded Mr. Fletcher seemed to hold an attraction for me. Well, I would have none of it. I had not been the wisest of women in my choices of male partners, but I was not stupid. I would learn from my mistakes.

“Oh, man,” he said, rubbing his face. “You’ve heard those absurd stories? I swear to you, I was just a victim of circumstance, nothing more. I’m not an adventurer. I’m not dashing and romantic. I’m not Indiana Jones.”

“But you
are
an airship pirate,” I said, gesturing toward the entrance to the hold with the Disruptor. “You will please return to your sister.”

“Airship . . . Oh, you mean my T- shirt,” he said, the puzzlement in his face fading into amusement. “It’s a band. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them. They’re pretty good. You should listen to their latest CD—I bet you’d like it. It’s got some goth overtones to it, but it’s still very listenable.”

“Sir, I have had quite enough of your conundrums. You will return to the entrance now, or I will be forced to use the Disruptor.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said easily, looking interested. “Does it have working parts?”

My patience was gone. With a silent oath, I pointed the gun toward the edge of the crate nearest him, one containing uniforms, and fired. The weapon spat out a single pulse of charged aether, blasting the corner of the wooden crate into a thousand little slivers. The smell of scorched wood drifted back to me as Jack examined the results.

“That’s pretty impressive. Did you have one of those special effect squibs rigged to blow up?” he asked slowly, reaching out to touch the still-smoldering remains of wood. With a yelp, he jerked his hand back, blowing on his fingers as he looked up to me. “That’s hot. How did you do that?”

“Am I to assume, Mr. Fletcher, that you deny the fact you are an airship pirate when the sign on the back of your undergarment states the opposite?”

“I got the T-shirt last night at the concert,” he said, looking back at the destroyed crate corner. “It wasn’t a squib you used, was it? It looks like the wood was hit by a high-temperature bullet.”

“Pulse, not bullet. The Mark 15 Empyrean Disruptors use pulses of heated aether rather than bullets,” I corrected him. “And now I’ve had enough of this farce. Please return to your sister.”

“You really are taking this to quite a length, aren’t you? Well, I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to play along with the whole thing much longer. I’ve got a lot on my plate today, and my boss will be on my back if I don’t get some things done. Hal? Wake up. We’ve got to get going.”

“Will you see to it that Mr. Christian has the brig arranged properly, Mr. Piper?” I asked the bosun.

He eyed Jack for a moment or two. “Ye sure ye’ll be all right with the blighted bastard?”

“Bastard?” Jack said, frowning at him. “Look, I don’t want to pick a fight with you, but I don’t appreciate being called a bastard when I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“I will be perfectly safe, Mr. Piper,” I reassured him, nodding toward the Disruptor.

“Aye, Captain.” Piper scurried around Jack, careful to give the younger man a wide berth.

Jack watched him go with a disgruntled look that he turned upon me as the door closed behind Mr. Piper. “OK, it’s just you and me and my addled sister, so you can drop the act. What’s going on here, Octavia, if that is really your name?”

“It is. I’ve told you repeatedly, Mr. Fletcher—you are my prisoner. It is you who seems to have trouble accepting that fact. There you are, Mr. Ho. I have been waiting some time for you.”

“My apologies, Captain,” the woman who was our steward’s mate said hurriedly, a bit out of breath. “I was up in the starboard stabilizing plane, helping Mr. Mowen. Dooley said someone was injured?”

Beatrice Ho, a slight woman of Asian descent, gazed at Jack with frank appraisal. Although I had been with this crew for only a few days, I had marked the steward’s mate out as someone I would enjoy knowing. She seemed a sensible young woman, hardworking, and knowledgeable in her job. I had no doubt she would rise in rank within the Aerocorps . . . but that didn’t explain why I was taken with an idiotic urge to shove her out of the room.

“
Mr.
Ho?” Jack asked, giving her a considering look.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“It is a custom in the Aerocorps to refer to all members of the crew in the masculine form, regardless of gender,” I said, annoyed with how stiff my voice sounded. I would not be influenced by this scoundrel! “It is an archaic rule, I agree, but we are bound to follow the traditions of the Corps, and thus Miss Ho is referred to as Mr. while she serves on board this ship. Mr. Ho, this gentleman’s sister is indisposed. She appears to have no injuries, but I would feel more comfortable if you were to examine her.”

“Certainly.”

“Mr. Fletcher, perhaps you would step out into the gangway while Mr. Ho works,” I said, gesturing toward the door.

Jack gave the steward a long look, then nodded and opened the door, waiting for me to go through.

“You will precede me, please,” I said, fighting the urge to brush back a lock of his hair that had fallen forward on his brow.

“For God’s sake . . .” He went through the door, stopping abruptly just beyond it, moving only when I gave him a gentle shove between the shoulder blades.

“Good God in heaven . . .” His voice held an odd mixture of awe, surprise, and disbelief as his head tilted back, his gaze going upward.

“Is something the matter?” I asked, trying to hold on to a shred of patience. I had to admit that one part of me was dying to know what outrageous thing he would say next. What came out of his mouth wasn’t at all what I expected.

“This is an airship,” he said, spinning around to face me as he gestured toward the aluminum girders and struts that made up the framework containing the balloon envelopes. “It’s really an airship.”

“What did you expect?” I asked, confused by the honest astonishment visible on his face. I searched his eyes, but found nothing there but profound surprise.

“But . . .” He turned slowly in a circle, his gaze darting from the balloon envelope directly above us to the six others that spanned the length of the airship. “But this is real. It can’t be, but it is. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.”

“You’ve never been on an airship before?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“No.” He turned back to me, his gaze earnest as he took my free hand. “Octavia, what’s happened to me? How did Hallie and I get here?”

I stared at him, not wanting to believe the evidence before me, but I couldn’t deny the truth—he was genuinely confused.

“I wish I could answer that, but I cannot,” I said, strangely touched by the way he clung to my hand as his gaze rose once more to the supporting structures of the airship. “But we will find out, Mr. Fletcher. You may rest assured that we will find out.”

“
I
don’t understand, Jack. I just don’t understand. Ex-Ip lain it to me. Explain how this could happen to us!”

“I don’t know exactly what happened to us, Hal.” I held my sister in my arms, more to keep her from running amok and possibly hurting herself than to comfort her. She was too distraught to gain comfort from anything but a serious dose of Valium.

“I know what it is.” Hallie pushed back from me, her face tight with suspicion. “You’re having me on, aren’t you? This is some great big elaborate joke you’ve concocted to pay me back for selling you at an auction. Well, it isn’t going to work, Jack. You and your skinny little buddy there aren’t going to make me believe we’re in some sort of weirdo fantasy world. I don’t know how you got me onto this blimp, or whatever it is, but I want down now. I have a lunch date with a really fabulous personal trainer, and I’m not going to miss it because you’ve dreamt up some grandiose practical joke!”

“It’s not a joke,” I said. “It’s real. This ship is real. This guy is real. Er . . . what was your name again?”

The tall, skinny kid who looked like he was about twenty, with slicked-back red hair and the vaguest hint of a mustache, straightened up and cleared his throat. “I am Aldous Christian, the chief officer on His Imperial Majesty’s Airship
Tesla
.”

“Nice to meet you, Al. I know Octavia told you to keep an eye on us, but is there somewhere else we can go other than this cabin? I think my sister needs to see a bit more of the ship.”

He frowned. “The captain didn’t say anything about you leaving the cabin.”

“Then she can’t mind if we do,” I pointed out, taking Hallie by the arm. “Come on, Hal. This is something you have to see.”

“I think the captain meant for you to stay here—,” Al started to say, but I had other plans. I pulled a lead-footed Hallie out into the corridor, and up a curved flight of stairs, stopping at a landing that was open to the main part of the airship. “There. See?”

She looked around, her expression bored. “It’s a movie set.”

“Not even close.”

She shook her head. “It has to be. Where did you get the sort of money to rent a whole movie set, Jack? That has to run to thousands, especially with the actors you had to hire to go with it.”

“Such a skeptic,” I sighed. “Hey, Al, is there a window somewhere that Hallie can look out? There’s no way she can say we’re on a movie set if we’re a thousand feet in the air.”

“There’s the observation platform, but we’ve landed in Marseilles to fill the boilers,” he said.

“Maybe that’ll convince you,” I told Hallie, taking her by the hand and pulling her back down the stairs. There had to be an exit somewhere on the lower level of the ship.

“What, more sets? Not even close. And stop pulling me around. I want to go to lunch with Luis and admire his abs.”

“Sir! Mr. Fletcher! You can’t do that!” Al the officer said, running after us. “The captain wouldn’t like it at all. No one is allowed off the ship while we’re taking on water.”

“There has to be some sort of an entrance down here,” I said, dragging Hallie down another flight of stairs with me to the area where we’d woken up. “If this is a cargo bay . . . ah, daylight!”

“I’ll give it to you, it’s quite an elaborate set,” Hallie commented as she looked around curiously. “Hi. You must be one of the actors my brother hired.”

A boy of about fifteen whirled around from where he was peering out of a door, staring at us in surprise. “Er ...”

“Pardon us,” I told the kid, pulling Hallie after me as I jumped down into hard-packed dirt. “There. Now tell me this is a movie set.”

“What’s he doing?” the kid asked Al.

“Get the captain,” he answered, his narrow face worried as he jumped down after us. “Sir, I must insist that you return to the
Tesla
. The captain will be very angry indeed if you violate the ship’s rules.”

Hallie was silent as she looked around us. I had to admit that the sight was somewhat awe inspiring, at least to our eyes. The small wooden building in front of us was nothing out of the ordinary, nor were the two huge water towers behind it, one of which was currently pouring water into an opening in the airship, assumably loading up the steam boilers. But it was the scene that lay beyond that had Hallie’s eyes opening wide.

“It’s . . . a city,” she said, blinking a couple of times.

“Yeah. A hell of a city,” I said, shaking off the hand that Al had placed on my arm. I walked past the wooden building, my gaze following the dirt road that snaked away from us, down a gentle slope to the town below. “Holy shit, that’s amazing. Look, Hal—carriages and horses and ladies in long skirts.”

“I’m not seeing this,” she said, moving to stand next to me. She shook her head. “It’s not possible. Tell me it’s all a joke, Jack.”

“Sir! Madam! You must return to the ship now,” Al said, almost dancing with agitation behind us.

“You said this was Marseilles?” I asked him, not taking my eyes off the town. It was a busy seaport, the streets clogged with horses and carriages, big open wagons hauling cargo, a couple of traditional sailing ships in the harbor, and people everywhere—women in long skirts like the one Octavia wore, men in frock coats and hats, or shirtsleeves, vests, and derbies. Most of the activity was centered around the piers, where men loaded cargo onto a seemingly endless line of empty wagons.

Beyond the busy port area, the streets stretched out in a fan shape, the buildings just a few stories tall, but beautifully built with cream stone, tall arched windows, and all those fiddly, fancy bits stuck around the front that tourists oohed and aahed over.

A Klaxon sounded from above. We turned just in time to see the long metal chute that spouted from a water tower withdrawing from the airship.