I unfolded the plans and laid them on the little table, the drawing of Naiade on top. In the cabin’s lights, the lines of the hull swept down from the bowsprit and back up to the rounded stern. It was hard to follow the curves precisely; they seemed to shift and twist, changing perspective like one of those drawings that shows a young lady at her mirror until you blink and it becomes a glaring skull. Miss Davis whistled between her teeth.
“I don’t know much about boats, but there’s sure something funny there.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mab said. He used his finger to trace one of the lines. I’d done that myself any number of times, and waited for the moment when he shook his head, blinking hard. He looked at Cullinane. “What are we looking at, then? Is this why she’s so fast?”
Cullinane nodded. “I believe — and correct me if I’m wrong, Tommy, please — Nicholas Wright used the Duplessis-Albericht transformation to calculate hull shape that would slip most efficiently through air and water. Through matter in general, in fact, but the relatively low density of air and water is what lets the Nymphs move so freely.”
“It does more than that,” I said. “Father said — it slips through time more efficiently, too, so it gets a little ahead of itself. Not by much, only fractions of a second, but over the course of a voyage it adds up to savings.”
Mab swore under his breath, but Cullinane merely nodded again. “Of course. Efficiency in more than three dimensions. Brilliant.”
“He called it a variation on Schatten-Theorie,” I said. “Shadow Theory? I saw the math once, the equations were enormous, at least two full pages, but after he died I couldn’t find that notebook.”
“Damn,” Cullinane said, but Mab shrugged, still trying to trace the lines of the hull.
“If we know that much, the work can be recreated. With this to help.”
“But that’s not the point,” Miss Davis said. “The point is to find Nereiade.”
“She’ll come,” Cullinane said, “and I’ll remind you that puts us all in grave danger.”
“But if they have Nereiade, why do they want Naiade, too?” I asked.
“She was the first built,” Mab said. “The closest to your father’s original plans. All the others had alterations to make them easier to build, easier to handle, but Naiade is the original. The one that will be the fastest, the best.”
Miss Davis looked around the room. “No offense, Max, but there’s only four of us. How are we supposed to stand up to a ship full of pirates?”
“All the reports mention a distant light, and then Nereiade’s ghostly shape,” Cullinane said. “I believe I know what that light is—it’s the key to the whole operation, and if we can nullify its effects, I believe Captain Turner’s men can deal with the attack.”
“It would be helpful if you gave us a few more details,” Mab said.
“And I will.” Cullinane spread his hands with a disarming grin. “Just as soon as I have them.”
Mab laughed, but his eyes were on the plans again. “This is an amazing design. An amazing ship.”
“What do you want us to do?” Miss Davis asked.
“I took the liberty of sending some anonymous messages to Wollart Lines before we left,” Cullinane answered, “warning that pirates might attempt an attack. I also mailed the same warning to Captain Turner. I believe he has taken them seriously.”
“We were told there might be trouble,” Mab agreed. “Though my Chief was worried about Wobblies and Bolsheviks.”
“I may have mentioned such things,” Cullinane said.
Old Man Wollart believed in capitalism and the American Way: those were words guaranteed to get him on your side in a pinch.
“Turner has posted extra lookouts, and is determined to steer clear of any ships encountered in fog or poor visibility,” Cullinane went on. “As for us—I think the captain’s precautions are good, but we may need a bit more.” He crossed to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and pulled out four silver whistles thicker than my forefinger. He put one to his lips and blew softly, and I winced at the shrill sound. Even muted and in the cabin, it seemed unnaturally piercing. “That’s our signal. If any of you see anything strange—particularly a light on the horizon, but really anything at all—I want you to sound off good and loud. Oh, and if you do see such a light, for God’s sake, don’t look at it.”
I took my whistle, turning it curiously in my hand. It felt heavy for its size, and rattled softly when I shook it. After a moment’s thought, I hooked it on my borrowed watch chain the way I’d seen the boys do it. Mab stuffed his in his pocket, and Miss Davis tucked hers into her beaded purse.
“All right, we’ll do it your way.” She rose to her feet, and Mab hurried to open the door. “Max—do you think there’s any chance Bella might be alive?”
Cullinane winced. “There’s always a chance,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t believe it.
We ran south all the next day, following the Gulf Stream south toward Florida. The weather was good, and Naiade ran easily through the gentle swells. I was getting used to my suit and my new persona: I could wander where I willed, and no one would question me, or try to shepherd me back to more respectable pursuits. I climbed down to the engine room, and stared in awe at the massive pistons; I made my way to the very point of the bow, where the bowsprit jutted into the spray, and no one told me to take care, or cautioned me that I would ruin my dress. I lunched with Miss Davis in the smaller dining room—Cullinane was nowhere to be found—and afterwards we made our way around the circuit of the Promenade, her hand on my arm in the most natural way while we chatted. I was falling into a schoolgirl’s crush, I knew, but I’d survived those before.
She had been unlucky in her marriage, she said. She’d married young hoping to create a stable life for herself, but by the time her daughter was a toddler, she’d known she couldn’t have a singer’s life and a family. It had been terribly hard, but she’d chosen her art, and permitted her husband to divorce her and to keep the child. It was only fair, she said, and anyway the clubs and the travel was no life for a baby. But then he had planned a trip to visit cousins in New York (and, I suspected, to see her) and taken ship on Nereiade, and the ship had disappeared into a fog bank and never been seen again. Her daughter Bella had been five then; she’d be almost seven now, and Miss Davis spoke wistfully of how big she’d be, but I could tell she didn’t truly believe Bella was alive any more than Cullinane did. I closed my hand over hers where it rested in the crook of my elbow, not knowing what else to say, and she glanced up with a watery smile.
“I have to have an answer, you see.”
I nodded.
“But let’s talk about something else.” She drew a deep breath, her bosom rising and falling sharply. “Where do you think we are?”
The horizon was out of sight, but by the time we’d traveled… “Coming up on the Carolina coast.” Coming up on Hatteras, I meant, but didn’t want to say it out loud. The air was growing damp, too, and the sky ahead was blurred with haze. Fog off Hatteras: I suspected that was what Cullinane was counting on, to lure the pirate in, and my eyes strayed nervously to the silvered horizons.
By late afternoon, the fog had thickened, and Captain Turner had started our own foghorn, blasting at steady intervals. In the intervening silences, I could hear another foghorn answering. Diamond Shoals or another ship? I strained my eyes as I leaned against the rail, and gave a sigh of relief as the fog thinned abruptly. Yes, there in the distance was the Diamond Shoals lightship, and for just a second I caught a glimpse of the coastline behind it, a shadow in the wavering light. Then it was gone, and the lightship wavered as a curtain of fog passed between us. Naiade held her course, aiming, I thought, to pass close enough alongside for the lightship’s crew to mark our passage. The lightship appeared again, rust-red sides rising high out of the waves, and vanished, then reappeared, closer still. I could see someone on the deck, a tiny shape that raised an arm in a broad wave of greeting. I waved back, and the lightship sl
ipped astern.
The air was damp and chilly now, and I remembered the pullover Cullinane had insisted I bring. Unnecessary, I’d thought, going south in the early summer, but it looked as though I’d be glad of it after all. The main Saloon was crowded, probably because of the lightship; I wormed my way through the crowd and let myself into the cabin. I’d just pulled the sweater over my head when I heard the shrill blast of one of Cullinane’s whistles. To stern and to port, I thought, and a light flashed outside the porthole, flat and blinding as lightning. There was no sound, just a heavy smell of lilacs, and against my will my eyes closed.
I woke folded into an uncomfortable shape, my neck bent awkwardly against a old bulkhead. The lights were stark, and there was a hand over my mouth. I promptly bit it, and Stefan Mab swallowed a curse.
“Quiet,” Cullinane said. “I told you she’d do that.”
“So you did.” Mab shook his hand unhappily.
“Sorry,” I said, and dragged myself into a more comfortable position. “What happened?”
“I miscalculated,” Cullinane said. He looked thoroughly annoyed with himself.
“The pirates have taken the ship,” Mab said.
“So where are we?”
“E Deck, starboard crew quarters,” Mab said. “They’ve already searched here.”
“Max.” Miss Davis came around the corner. She was still in the dress she’d worn at lunch, but she’d changed her court shoes for a practical pair of pumps. “They’ve moved on.”
“Good.” Cullinane held out his hand, and I let him pull me to my feet.
“Who are ‘they,’ anyway?”
“I don’t know who,” Cullinane answered, “but, yes, they took the ship. They came alongside in the fog before anyone spotted them, and used the light and then gas to put the ship to sleep. The only good news is that they’ve only got about a dozen men all told, and some of them are back on Nereiade.”
“Anyone who was in his cabin has been locked in,” Mab said. “I’m worried about the others, Max.”
“I know.” Cullinane pressed his palms together hard. “We need to take the bridge. If we get control of the ship, they’ll have to try to take it back.”
“They will have hostages,” Mab said.
“They’re dead anyway,” Cullinane answered, and I shuddered. Certainly it was true, there was no reason for the pirates to keep anyone alive if all they wanted was the ship itself, but to hear it said aloud was somehow worse.
“Then we’d better hurry,” Miss Davis said. “Tommy, do you have a gun?”
“No.” I looked around, saw a fire axe hanging on the wall beside a coil of hose. I grabbed that, testing the weight. I’d used heavier axes at our camp back home, and anyway, fear was giving me extra strength. “Just don’t call me Lizzie.”
Mab lifted his eyebrows, but Cullinane grinned briefly. “All right. Let’s go.”
He pulled a blackjack from his pocket, and Mab drew a broomhandle Mauser that surely dated from the War. Miss Davis dipped her hand into her purse and came up with a dainty pistol not much bigger than her palm, all silver scrollwork and mother of pearl, but from the way she held it I had no doubt she knew how to use it. Cullinane led the way through the corridor and up the crew’s stairs to B Deck. From there, we’d have to go forward, past the Smoking Lounge, to reach the stairs that led to the bridge.
Cullinane paused long enough at the top of the stairs to be sure the coast was clear, then led us down the port corridor. As I brought up the rear, I could see why. Nereiade was standing off the starboard side, just barely keeping a safe distance. In that quick glance, I couldn’t make out anyone on deck, but there had to be watchers on the bridge, and even if they didn’t have loudhailers they were close enough to hear shouting.
As we came to the entrance to the Ladies Saloon, I could hear voices, and Cullinane waved us back against the wall.
“They’ll do anything you tell them,” a man said. “Walk right overboard if you want them to.”
“Yeah, sure,” a second voice answered, and I suppressed a curse. At least two of them, then, and we had to pass both the open door and the broad windows.
“They will,” the first voice insisted. “Go ahead, tell her.”
“Won’t the boss be upset?”
“He’s going to get rid of them anyway.”
In the silence, I saw Cullinane and Mab exchange glances, and then the second voice spoke again.
“Ok, lady. Go outside and jump over the rail.”
I braced myself, not sure yet for what, and a moment later an older woman in a lilac afternoon dress emerged from the door. Her face was slack beneath her disheveled white hair, her eyes as empty as a dead woman’s as she started toward the rail.
“She’s going to do it,” the second voice said, and giggled.
“If she can get over it,” the first man said. “You might have to help her.”
Miss Davis moved then, grabbing the older woman and twisting her away from the rail to pin her against the saloon’s wall. I saw the first of the men emerge from the doorway, frowning as though he didn’t believe what he’d seen, and Cullinane dropped him with a single stroke of the blackjack. Mab charged past him, and I heard a muffled pistol shot, came up with my axe raised to see a second body on the floor, a curl of smoke rising from his singed vest. Nearly a dozen people stood in the room’s center, passengers and a couple of stewardesses, their faces as blank as the other woman’s had been.
“Come inside,” Miss Davis said, to the other woman, her voice trembling only slightly, and the older woman obeyed.
Mab looked up from hogtying the man Cullinane had downed, using a cord he’d stripped from the nearest curtain. “Do you think they heard?”
Cullinane shook his head. “Not unless they were right on top of us.”
“Max, you have to do something about them,” Miss Davis said.
“I can’t—” He stopped, shaking his head. “All right. Ladies, listen. Go back to your cabins at once and lock yourselves inside. All of you. Go back to your cabins.”
His voice was low and compelling, and the women turned as one, began making their way toward the doors.
“It’s all I can do,” he said, to Miss Davis. He looked around the room, frowning, and reached for one of the mirrors that hung on the forward bulkhead. It was bolted in place, of course, and he looked at me. “Tommy, can you get this loose?”
“Not without a wrench.”
“I need a mirror.”
I looked at it for a moment, studying the possibilities, then turned the axe backward in my hand. “Stand clear,” I said, and hit it sharply in one corner. The glass crazed, a spiderweb of cracks spreading over its surface, and I sighed with relief to see that one of the pieces was almost a quarter of the original.
“Good work,” Cullinane said, and together we pried it out of the frame. “Let’s go.”
There was no one in the main saloon as wedged past, and the doors of the dining room were closed, the curtains drawn. We paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening, and I thought I could hear the muffled sounds of at least three people moving around on the bridge above us. Cullinane took a careful step up, and then another, his head cocked to listen, and Mab lifted his pistol to cover him.
“We have to take them fast,” he said, so softly that it was like hearing his thoughts. “Stefan and me first, then Tommy. You cover us, Lottie.”
We all nodded, and he peered up the stairs again. “All right. Ready—go!”
He and Mab charged up the stairs, and I hauled myself up after them, Miss Davis at my heels. Before I was quite at the top, I heard someone cry out, and then a shot, and a man lunged toward me, whether to attack or push past me down the stairs I didn’t know. I swung the axe at him and missed, and Cullinane swung his blackjack expertly. The man collapsed, and slithered past me to stop at Miss Davis’s feet. She stepped over him and hurried on up the stairs. Cullinane and Mab had secured the others, one more out cold and the other two tied
back to back in a corner. Both of them looked only half conscious, as though Cullinane or Mab had hit them hard. Captain Turner stood by the far window, the helmsman at his side, both their faces as blank as the women in the Saloon below. Mab stepped to the wheel, studying the controls, and Cullinane said, “Can you move us away from Nereiade?”
Mab tested the wheel, then looked at the engine room telegraph. “Only if they’re answering bells in the engine room. Can’t you wake them?”
“I don’t know.” Cullinane propped the mirror against the bulkhead, and studied Turner. He touched the man’s arm, got no response, and finally took his shoulders in both hands, turning him to face him. “Tommy, take a look at Nereiade, but make sure you’re not seen. See if there’s a searchlight anywhere on the bridge deck. Lottie, if anybody tries to come up the stairs, or if any of these boys try anything — shoot them.”
“With pleasure.” Miss Davis pressed herself against the bulkhead by the head of the stair where she had a clear shot, and I peered cautiously out the starboard windows. Nereiade was still alongside, a sudden puff of smoke rising from her single stack as she adjusted her engines to keep station. The fog seemed to be thinning, and it was easier to see her through the haze. There still wasn’t anyone visible on deck, but when I grabbed a pair of binoculars off the chart table, I could make out shapes behind the glass of the bridge. And—yes, it looked like a searchlight, or more like a signal lamp, and I turned to tell Cullinane.
He had Captain Turner by the shoulders, and was repeating something in a soft voice, words that I couldn’t quite understand, but that somehow tugged at my hearing as though I ought to be able to grasp them, if only I listened a little harder. He waved his hand in front of Turner’s face, then snapped his fingers, but nothing happened.
“Max,” Mab said. He was keeping Naiade turned into the sluggish swells, his hands moving easily on the wheel.
“I need more time,” Cullinane said.
“I can see the searchlight,” I said, and he turned toward me.
“Where?”
“There,” I said, pointing, and handed him the glasses. He took them, studying Nereiade’s side, and I saw his mouth tighten.
Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction Page 22