Competence

by Gail Carriger

  She did not acknowledge his request for proper address. “We are out.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what you called about, isn’t it?”

  “The propeller has stopped propelling.”

  “We’re out of coal. Both kettles are dry. And it makes not a jot of difference if you ask me to lift coal reserves from the maintenance burner, or take the last of Cook’s stock, we’re done here. We’ve no water either. We are dry in all ways.”

  “I’ve lost steering?”

  “You’ve lost steering.” Aggie’s tone said a million things. That this was not her fault. That this was most likely Rue’s fault for pushing the Custard too hard. That she would yell this into Rue’s face when she saw her next.

  “You can’t give me anything at all?”

  “Not a single steamed sausage, sweetheart.”

  “Charming, Miss Phinkerlington. A ten-minute warning would have been common courtesy.”

  The impossible woman clicked off the tube at her end without bothering to reply. Common courtesy was not in her vocabulary. Percy sighed, he’d never thought to meet anyone more rude than he was. I should try to be nicer to people if this is what it feels like on the receiving end. Except being nice is so very exhausting.

  Percy considered the Spotted Custard‘s next move. They couldn’t stay hovering. There was a distinct breeze running through the valley, it was already carrying them southwards over the city, without the propeller to fight it. There was no wheystation anywhere in sight and no obelisk for a tie-down.

  So far as Percy could tell, that left him with only one option. Fortunately, a Catholic country like this one boasted said option in abundance. All he really needed was a nice tall church steeple.

  Percy depuffed them quickly. No doubt everyone’s ears were popping, but this was an emergency.

  He scanned the terrain. There appeared to be a massive church in the centre of the city, just south of them now, and if he was quick he could ride the valley breeze and get them down in time to drag anchor for it.

  He had a skeleton crew of only a few decklings, with Willard as sole deckhand in charge.

  Lacking any other resources, Percy yelled over to him. “Willard. Emergency depuffing with the intent of tying down immediately. I’m making for that church, just there, to the southwest of that assembly square. Do you see it?”

  “That’s no church, sir, that’s a cathedral.”

  “Yes, I do believe you’re right. Oh well.”

  “Locals might take that amiss, sir.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “Do we anticipate hostiles?”

  “Is anyone ever happy to see us?”

  “Sir, we really need the captain for this kind of thing.”

  “And we need more than a skeletal crew, I couldn’t agree more. But I can’t spare a single one of you at the moment to go fetch her. Have all your decklings prepare ropes to lasso anchor on that steeple. Let’s hope it’s a sturdy one. I picked the biggest I could find.”

  “Yes, sir. I could run below and get—”

  Percy shook his head, which made his temples ache with exhaustion. “No. You need to take the Gatling. Like I said, no one ever seems happy to see us. If anything goes wrong, like - oh, I don’t know - we crash into their favourite cathedral, we might want to be able to defend ourselves.”

  “Understood, sir.” Willard began yelling instructions to the decklings as he took up position behind the Gatling gun.

  The Spotted Custard dropped steadily downwards and drifted steadily southwards.

  The city was more chaotic and less formal close up. It was roughhewn from mountain rock, with dirt packed in between. It had an old-fashioned feel to it, with no pillars of industry belching black smoke into the clean mountain air. The roads were unsullied by monowheels or coccinellidae steamers. There weren’t even omnibuses or carriages crowding the streets. Percy blinked in surprise. They didn’t appear to have horses at all in this part of the world. A strange place indeed. Perhaps horses didn’t do well in the high mountains? There did seem to be some form of extremely hairy long-necked beast of burden, but that was it. No one was riding anything. People actually seemed to simply walk everywhere. How novel.

  It was also rather colourful. Not dark and gloomy with soot and fog. The locals were dressed in bright primary colours, and so were the long-necked not-horses. There were flags and ribbons flying here and there of a similar garish cheerfulness.

  The square around the cathedral they were aiming for was packed with humanity. A market or a parade or an assembly of some kind was occurring. Percy wondered if it was a saint’s day, this being a Catholic country.

  The Spotted Custard continued her inexorable sink and drift. Percy kept one hand to the helm, using sail and rudder to give them some kind of guidance, but it was pure hope. Both systems were meant for sailing the aetherosphere, not the atmosphere. The Custard was, at this moment, nothing more than a glorified hot-air balloon. They were at the mercy of the elements. Percy could puff them up, or depuff them down, through the manipulation of helium and air ballast, but that was the sum total of their maneuverability.

  They didn’t actually hit the church steeple, but it was a very near thing. Tiles might have been lost. The decklings proved their mettle with a concerted swarm of small bodies to the starboard side, where they threw out the linking net, the one the Drifters had once used to keep balloons connected midair. The net was a good choice, it gave them a bigger margin for error. Percy was pleased, Spotted Custard decklings were smarter than the average deckling.

  The net fell in a cascade of brown, and some part of the centre caught and held right over the steeple. The decklings having lashed it all along the starboard side, the Custard jerked and then listed to starboard. It wasn’t bad enough to cause a dangerous tilt, but Percy suspected everyone but Tasherit would be awake now.

  Percy puffed them ever so slightly, to counter the sideways strain. The Custard righted herself. He locked down the balloon flaps to keep them at this height and let out a relieved breath.

  The sooties let forth a huge cheer. Well, huge considering there were only four of them.

  Percy almost wanted to cry. He was so tired. But they’d done it - they were down and they were moored, against all odds.

  And so far, no one is shooting at us. I’ll take that as a win all round, he thought.

  Then Percy heard the cheering, huge and loud and rolling and not coming from his sooties. Oh no, this was coming from the city beneath them.

  Primrose awoke to a strange roaring rushing sound. It came in waves like the ocean but was not so soothing. There seemed to be music involved as well. It took her a long lazy moment to realise what it reminded her of - the crowds at the opera or in Vauxhall Gardens.

  Someone is cheering. Many, many someones are cheering.

  She yawned and thought about tea. The light was slashing fully through the porthole and her stomach was growling away. Must be just past noon, or so, she surmised.

  She tumbled out of bed and went to the porthole to look.

  They were down close over a city, only a few stories up. She’d no idea what they were lashed to, but something held them steady. There was that little bobbing sensation that came when the airship was tied down rather than holding steady under her own steam with the propeller. She thought it might have been the jerk of rope attaching to its mooring that woke her.

  They were over one part of an assembly square, cobbled and built of grey mountain rock, military in design and precision. The three sides she could see were made up of buildings of the barracks variety, but more likely to be government and religious in nature, she suspected. They were universally three stories high, except for the occasional church, with the second level cantilevered out over the first, providing for long interconnected balconies above and shaded colonnades below. The balconies were decorated with extremely colourful draped woven fabrics, and people stood on
them wearing extremely colourful draped woven outfits. The locals had dark complexions with soulful eyes and ready smiles. Prim remembered Rue’s instructions that she and Percy and Quesnel stay indoors and out of sight because they were scarily pale.

  She hoped Percy, the only one on deck, had remembered this and remained safely crouched in his navigation pit, mostly out of view.

  She looked down into the square. They’d obviously arrived during a celebration of some iteration. Lots of peaked hats were involved. She could see nuns and other religious representatives gathered in flocks of black or white among all the colour. People seemed to be waving about an inordinate number of wooden crosses, a few gold statues were raised up on platforms, and everyone would occasionally break into song. Well, not the statues. The melodies were faintly familiar, although the singing was in Spanish.

  “Is it…?” Primrose frowned. Surely they would not have forgotten. Not the whole crew. Although they had been very busy recently. “I think it might be.”

  Throwing a wrap about herself, Primrose ran to the hallway and yelled up at the captain’s quarters.

  “Rue!”

  Rue’s head appeared, looking down the ladder. “I was just going up top, you’re to stay down here, remember?”

  “Rue, it’s Christmas!”

  “Well, I never. Surely not.”

  “Oh yes it is, they’re singing about the three kings out there and holding up statues of the saviour and all sorts. Timing works out if you think about it. I mean, you must at least acknowledge we’re nearing the end of December. We simply got distracted by the grey and air-pirate soup ladles.”

  “I don’t have gifts for anyone.”

  “That’s the least of your problems. Percy seems to have set us down right over the main assembly square in Cusco. Knowing my brother, he’s likely lashed us to their central cathedral. This a Catholic country, remember.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Rue, shockingly profane given the current circumstances. Her head disappeared.

  Quesnel’s head appeared in her place. “What’s going on?”

  “It is Christmas.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  Primrose remembered last night and the French postcards and blushed beet red. She pulled her wrap close about her. “I’ll just go get dressed.”

  “Breakfast?” The Frenchman tried one of his dimpled smiles. “I’m not allowed to go up top either, remember?”

  “Luncheon, I should think, now. I’ll go check with Cook after I’m decent. Give me a half hour?”

  “Excellent.”

  “Christ almighty,” said Primrose, giving herself licence to swear under the circumstances. “I need tea immediately.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rumours of Pishtacos

  “Percy!”

  Percy awoke with a jerk to find he’d dozed off at his station, slumped over the helm and drooling slightly.

  “I wasn’t sleeping!”

  “You were snoring. I didn’t realise that the roar of an angry mob could be so soothing.” Rue was standing over him. She was backlit, so he couldn’t tell if she was really angry at him or not.

  He scrubbed at his face. “It’s likely some form of reaction to my relief. Not that I was worried, I don’t doubt my own abilities, but it was a humdinger of a landing.”

  “You’ve lashed us down to a cathedral.”

  “Yes, I have. We needed something tall and pointy. No wheystations or obelisks in this part of the world.”

  “I understand your reasoning, Percy, and I appreciate your getting us depuffed in one piece given the circumstances. But a religious icon is, perhaps, a problematic choice.”

  “I didn’t choose it. There was no choosing. It simply happened.”

  “Whatever you say. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, so to speak, it’s also Christmas Day.”

  “What? Is it indeed? How perspicacious.” Percy could see how the cathedral might be an issue under these particular circumstances. “Would it help if I said oops? Or apologised to the crowd?”

  “You know I don’t want you seen. Go below and go to bed, would you please? I’ll take care of the cathedral.”

  That was an oddly ominous way of putting it. “I wasn’t really asleep at my post.”

  “Of course you weren’t. That line across your face is merely from hugging the helm out of affection, I’m sure.”

  Percy climbed out of navigation with as much dignity as he could muster. “Very well, but if the angry mob attacks please don’t bother to wake me. I always said I wanted to go in my sleep.”

  “Done,” said Rue.

  Percy was to learn later that several things happened after he left the poop deck to seek his well-deserved rest. Firstly, the mob turned out to be no mob at all and not even slightly angry. In fact it was simply a celebratory crowd, and they were cheering the arrival of a great big red-spotted airship. They’d never seen its like. To have one float in on Christmas Day was perceived as some sort of representative of the Star of David. (Albeit a rather chubby version.) They weren’t considering the appearance of the Spotted Custard exactly a miracle, but they did think it a very nice sign of the Almighty.

  Rue met with the local bishop shortly after Percy went to bed. Said bishop was absolutely delighted that they’d moored to his cathedral.

  “Apparently they don’t often get visitors,” she told everyone over tea later that afternoon.

  “I believe he thinks we’re representatives of the Inquisition branch of the Vatican on a supernatural extermination mission. Straight from Rome or what have you. It helps that I took Rodrigo and Anitra with me to meet him. Anitra’s veil threw him into a tizzy, he thinks she’s some kind of specialist assassin nun. And because it’s easier all round, we were all speaking Latin. Rodrigo’s presence didn’t help. Or it did. He used to be an agent of the church, of course, or the Templar offshoot of it, so he knows exactly what to say and how to say it. The bishop was awfully impressed.”

  Rodrigo Tarabotti was with them at the tea. Rue’s praise seemed to have the same sort of effect on him as it did on everyone else. He almost glowed with the pleasure of it.

  “Thank you, little cousin. It is fun to play with empathy.”

  “I think you mean play on his sympathies, dear, but we take your meaning,” corrected Anitra delicately.

  Rue added, in that open self-effacing way of hers, “Well, you know, none of us have much exposure to the Catholic Church. You’re very good with the ritual of it all.”

  Rodrigo nodded. “I have never been in a church, ovviamente. I am the soulless. But I know the basics.”

  “You watched and observed hierarchy and practices when they were off holy ground. They trained you for that.” Anitra placed a comforting hand over his on the table. Percy wondered if she’d seen hurt in his face that the rest of them did not.

  The Italian inclined his head. “It is no fun to grow up soulless in the Catholic places.”

  “It’s very colourful here,” observed Rue. “Is that a Catholic thing too?”

  Rodrigo looked confused. “I don’t think so.”

  Anitra asked, “What is this nun word they kept using on me?”

  Percy explained, “Nuns are committed female practitioners who give up their mortal lives to essentially marry the church. Take a vow of chastity and so forth.”

  “They marry God,” corrected Rodrigo.

  Percy sneered. “For Catholics how much difference is there between the two?” He held up a hand. “That was a rhetorical question. Now, where was I? Oh yes, nuns. The ritual clothing is called a habit, it customarily involves flowing black robes and a veil.”

  Rodrigo was looking at Percy askance. Percy refused to be deterred from his dismissive tone. He found religion nothing less than illogical and he would not be moved to respect Catholicism merely on the basis of longevity. What’s next? Running around worshipping vampires?

  “What do these nuns do?”
Anitra asked, touching her own veil thoughtfully.

  “Charitable works mostly. Feeding the poor, knitting hats, delivering baskets, kite flying, that kind of thing.” Percy admitted this part grudgingly. “You are dressed similarly but not to standards, I’m sure. I suspect this bishop has not been visited by the Vatican for many years, that he believes you to be a special Inquisition nun.”

  Anitra looked shocked. “They think I have taken a vow of chastity?”

  Rodrigo chuckled at her offended expression.

  Primrose spoke at this juncture, driven by desperate sanctimony most likely. “More tea, anyone?”

  Rue brought them to order. “We must consider how to tackle this situation. It’s good that the bishop speaks Latin and has welcomed us so openly. I will continue to converse with him. Rodrigo, you had better stick with me. You and I pass for Italian without incident.”

  “I am Italian,” Mr Tarabotti reminded her.

  “Yes, yes. Plus I can keep an eye on you this way. And the bishop seems to wish to deal with a man.” She continued on. “We still need to acquire large amounts of both coal and water.”

  Quesnel said, “You still believe the twins and I should remain unseen? Aggie too, I assume.”

  “It seems most wise. Right now the locals are welcoming us, wouldn’t want to sully that with accusations of vampiredom. Rodrigo and I will see what the bishop can do for us in the matter of fuel.”

  “Mostly coal. If we can get enough water to get us an hour of propulsion, I spotted a stream south of the city,” said Percy. “We can pull the rest from there.”

  “What about me?” Anitra asked.

  “You’ll have to go into market for Prim’s supplies. It’s not ideal, but Primrose will give you the list.”

  Primrose pursed her lips. “You know I like to do the shopping in person, especially in a foreign country. Consider this, Rue - I have my floating ensemble. It has a veil and it’s a nice dark brown material. There are ways it might be misconstrued as a habit. The full veil is not very much used nowadays, as I understand it, but we are the exotic visitors from Italy. Perhaps they might overlook eccentricity? If I entirely covered my face and wore gloves, it would prevent Anitra from having to go in alone.”