The Cold Beneath (6 page)

I stared at the deflated balloon. “Inflated with what? I assume we would use hot air diverted from the boilers. But this is unlike any balloon I’ve ever seen.”

“Steam is just vaporized water,” Lightbridge said calmly, as if explaining basic science to a child. “Once we reach the extreme temperatures of the Arctic, one of two things is bound to happen. Or perhaps both. Either we will be unable to generate steam fast enough to combat the cooling effect of subzero temperatures, or …”

I finished the thought for him. “Or the collective condensation will freeze the balloon, leaving us deadweight in midair.” Both of these things were terrible possibilities, but an even worse thought struck me, and with it came a gut-wrenching dread. If they weren’t going to fill the bag with hot air, then that left only one gas light enough to help lift the ship. I whipped to face the two men, who were staring at me with bemused looks. “Please don’t tell me you intend to travel with that much hydrogen strapped atop us. We would be nothing more than a floating bomb!”

“Calm down, laddie,” Albert said. “Hydrogen would be suicide.”

“Then what is left?” I asked.

Lightbridge grinned. “Helium.”

I wrinkled my nose as I stared at him. Helium was a fairly new discovery, a buoyant gas whose power in lift was only exceeded by its rarity. “What madness is this?” Turning back to the airbag, I stated an obvious but universal truth. “There’s not enough helium in the world to fill my stomach let alone that bag.”

“There wasn’t,” Lightbridge corrected me. “But there is now.”

The pair led me to a small mechanic’s shop at the back of the greenhouse, in the midst of which sat a cloth-covered heap. The back wall was lined with metal canisters, each about four feet in height and unlabeled.

 
“What do you think?” Lightbridge asked as he ran his hands along the mysterious canisters.

My eyes drew to slits of suspicion. “What am I supposed to think?”

Again the man dropped his voice to that condescending tone. “It’s helium, son.”

“What is?”

Lightbridge swept a demonstrative arm in front of the cans. “All of it. Every last one, filled to the brim. Ready to transfer into the Fancy the moment we decide to depart.”

In retrospect, I suppose I should have held my tongue, but at the idea that those fifty or so cans were filled with something as rare as helium, well, I just couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Long and loud, I laughed. I hadn’t laughed so hard in quite some time, and maybe I overdid the humor of it a little, but the notion struck me as beyond amusing. It was foolishness at its worst. Almost as unbelievable as the idea of this entire trip.

“You almost had me,” I said between guffaws. “I must seem so gullible.”

The men looked to one another, neither upset nor resentful of my laughter.

“Show him,” Lightbridge said.

Albert nodded, then whipped the cloth away from the heap, exposing what lay beneath.

The sight of the machine killed my laughter mid-chuckle.

I stared, slack-jawed and wide-eyed at a thing of awesome beauty. Even without the knowledge of what it was capable of doing, I could see it was the product of pure genius. Compact gears and winding cables crisscrossed the machine in a complex pattern. Stopcocks and pressure switches lined the sides, all motionless in its dormant state. I could spot an intake valve and an output nozzle, but the makings in between said nothing of what it did. So I asked.

“Natural gas is fed through this tube here,” Albert said, pointing to the left side of the machine. “It is then run through a series of filters and ionic polarizations, until helium exits here.” He motioned to the nozzle for emphasis. “There is a series of byproducts that eject through these ports, but nothing of any consequence.”

I heard him, but again had trouble believing it. “I’m sorry? What does it do?”

“It makes helium,” Lightbridge reiterated.

“No …” I whispered.

“Yes,” Albert said. His beaming pride was not lost on me. It was very much like the knowing grin of a proud papa.

“You made this?” I asked.

The chief mechanic nodded. Something like embarrassment settled on him as his cheeks grew rosy.

“Good God, man!” I shouted. “This could be one of the greatest inventions of the year. Damnation! I dare say of the entire century. It shouldn’t be covered up in some greenhouse. It should be shared with the world! Shouted from the rooftops. Your face should be on the cover of every scientific rag from here to England.”

The top of Albert’s head gained the same rosy hue as his cheeks. The man actually held his hands behind his back and twisted his toe on the dirt floor of the greenhouse like a shamed schoolboy. “It’s not all that special. Just a little something I whipped up for the Cap here.”

“Just a little …” I let the words trail off as my aggravation swelled. “Certainly you don’t believe that. This is extraordinary. You do realize if this does what you claim, that you are a genius. A certifiable genius.”

“Albert’s modesty forbids him to think such things,” Lightbridge said. “It also helps me keep the machine to myself.”

I was reaching the end of my tether. “Sir, I must protest. This could change the face of the world overnight. If helium can be readily made available, then there is no limit to its applications.”

“We know,” Lightbridge said. “Which is why I intend to reveal it to the world, with the added proof of our airship in flight. Once we return, of course.”

“Return,” I echoed. “You intend to just leave this … this … this phenomenon idly sitting here while we jaunt off to the Arctic Circle for a bit?”

“That’s precisely what I intend to do,” Lightbridge said. As I stared at him, flabbergasted to the point of silence, he scratched his beard in thought. “Well, I actually mean to have the machine moved into my walk-in safe before we leave. I might be mad, but I’m not crazy.”

“Not entirely crazy,” a woman said from above us.

My skin went cold as I recognized the speaker. It was a voice I had hoped never to hear again for as long as I lived.

****

back to toc

****

Seven

Geraldine

“Hello, Philip,” the woman said, her lilting voice echoing through the greenhouse.

I raised my face to spy the speaker standing on the bow of the enormous ship. She leaned over the railing, staring down at me. Even with the distance between us, I recognized her. The voice was unmistakable. Her silhouette, unforgettable. “Geraldine?”

“It’s good to see you again.”

I struggled to form a response. “It’s … good to see you.” I was exaggerating slightly. But now was not the time to speak what lay on my heart. That would come soon enough.

She disappeared from the railing as Lightbridge tried to explain how the helium was to be transferred into the airbag. What the man didn’t realize was that I had lost interest in the ship altogether. There were more pressing issues at hand.

“Goode’s widow is here?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

My face grew even colder as the blood drained from it. “Why?”

“I invited her.”

“Why?” I repeated.

“I thought I explained this already. I needed a doctor. She seemed a logical choice, since she is not only of the medical persuasion, but also intimately familiar with my prosthetics.”

It made perfect sense. Why hire someone to whom the clockworks would be foreign territory when he could have someone familiar with both his medical and mechanical needs. Which also raised the question of why he needed me along when he had her. “You didn’t say she was your personal physician.”

“That’s because I’m not,” Geraldine said, emerging from the darkness of the ship.

My jaw almost touched the floor as I gaped at the sight of her. Five years had passed since I had last laid eyes on her, yet she was as beautiful as the day she left me standing alone at the docks. Long red tresses hung past her slender shoulders, framing her pale face. Bright green eyes searched mine as she smiled at me, that seductive grin teasing, taunting, flooding my senses with burning memories. My heart stirred, my pulse quickened, and I was forced to remind myself of her treachery. It was difficult, to say the least.

“You’ll catch flies like that, lad,” Albert said with a chuckle.

I snapped my mouth shut.

“I don’t believe introduction is needed,” Lightbridge said.

“Oh, no,” Geraldine said as she joined the three of us in the shadow of the airship. “Mr. Syntax and I are quite familiar with one another. Aren’t we?”

I nodded, still rendered speechless by her beauty.

“Dr. Goode is not just my personal physician,” Lightbridge said. “She’s the ship’s medic. Doctor for the entire crew, as it were.”

“You must be joking,” I said. He expected me to travel with her?

“Do you hear me laughing?” The look he gave me was stern, serious.

Shaking my head, I backed away from Albert and Lightbridge, but most of all Geraldine. “I’m sorry, but this is too much.” After a quick turn on my heel, I crossed the length of the quiet greenhouse, ducked under the makeshift cover and slipped out of the door. The workmen stood in small cliques around the building, waiting to return to their tasks. I put a few yards between me and my past before I heard her shout my name.

“Philip, please!”

I would not be stopped. I kept on my course, set to return to my dreary life instead of facing her and her excuses.

“Philip,” she said, “don’t walk away from this.”

Those words stopped me in my tracks. The murmur of the workers fell to an eerie silence as our confrontation caught their attention.

“If you abandon this,” she said, “you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

I drew a deep breath before I turned to face her. I sneered, trying hard not to show any affection, however small. “A warning such as this from an expert on abandonment?”

She crossed the lawn toward me, unmoved by my accusations. “I know you’re angry with me, but—”

“Angry? I am filled with many emotions, my dear lady, but I assure you, anger is not one of them. Regret, indignation, sorrow, but not anger. I warn you, I am well past the point of anger.”

Geraldine continued toward me as I spoke, while Albert emerged from the greenhouse, shouting at the men to stop staring and get back to work. They returned to their labors, grousing about missing my reunion with my estranged fiancée. After they filed into the greenhouse, Lightbridge leaned against the closed doors, arms crossed, watching our argument with much interest.

“Please,” Geraldine begged. “Please just allow me to explain.”

“What is there to explain? That snake took my life’s work, and when I needed you most, you sided with him.” I lowered my voice as I added, “I needed you, Geraldine. And you abandoned me. I thought … I thought you loved me.”

“I did.” She bit her lower lip, and the sight of it drove me mad with longing.

How could I still desire her after she put me through so much torture? “Then why? Why did you throw away everything we had?”

Geraldine sighed, a sweet note of melancholy, before she took my hand into hers, her palm hot against my clammy skin. “I have no excuses. I was young and determined, eager to follow anyone I thought could better my career as well as my status. I loved you, but Elijah offered me something you couldn’t.”

“My work.”

“I knew from the moment he unveiled your work as his own that no one would believe your claims of thievery. Then when he asked me to marry him, I couldn’t refuse. Not when he had the world at his feet and you had … well, you had nothing.”

The words stung my eyes, my lips, my heart. “I had something … until you left.”

“I know what I did was wrong.” She paused to chew her lower lip again in thought before she added, “I don’t expect your forgiveness.”

I jerked my hand from hers. “Then I won’t disappoint you.”

Geraldine was persistent. “This is a man’s world, Mr. Syntax. You must understand what it’s like for a woman of ambition and education. I am allowed to think, but I am to act as though I am incapable of thought. I had little standing on my own and would gain but slightly more as the wife of a respected scientist. I did what I had to do.” She gathered my hand to her again. “But I’ve always regretted it. I never loved him. And I never stopped loving you. I’m sorry. I truly am.”