by Martha Wells
Lord Engal seemed to be facing a similar dilemma. He hesitated, then finally said gruffly, “Not much opportunity to plan for this sort of eventuality, when one had no idea what Dr. Marlende was going to discover, if anything. Seems to me we've all been simply doing our best with what little we know.” He cleared his throat. “Now let's have a better look at this landing site and see what it tells us.”
Miss Marlende pressed a hand to her temple for a moment, then said, in a steadier voice, “Yes, of course.”
They went up the dirt-cut steps to the top of the bluff. It was warmer up there than down by the water, and Emilie was glad she was wearing one of Miss Marlende's lighter cotton shirts. The large grassy clearing looked bare of clues at first, but as soon as Kenar and the others began to point things out, Emilie could see the signs that a great many people had been here.
There were footmarks in the dirt, tufts of grass that had been ripped up, divots in the ground and spots of flattened vegetation where large heavy things had rested. Back under the shade of the trees, they found a rock hearth where someone had made a campfire, places where food garbage had been buried, a dropped handkerchief stained with engine oil, a wrench that had been accidentally kicked into a bush. Oswin pointed out that there was only a little rust on it, which it couldn't have been there for more than a few days.
They could see the marks on the nearby palm trees where heavy ropes had been tied, that must have been the anchor lines for the airship. And there was a big square spot in the dirt where Kenar said the main cabin had rested, when Dr. Marlende had lowered the craft all the way down to try to repair the aetheric engine. “It looks as if they moved it, at least twice,” Oswin said, poking at a tuft with the toe of his boot. He looked at Kenar inquiringly.
Kenar spread a hand, shaking his head. “They may have. When Jerom and I left, Dr. Marlende still hadn't given up on the idea that he could fix the engine himself.”
“It was only the aetheric engine that was damaged, correct?” Oswin said. “Not the smaller oil-fueled engine that would allow the airship to maneuver.”
Kenar nodded, glancing at Miss Marlende. “But Dr. Marlende didn't want to move the airship too far without the aetheric engine. He was afraid he would run out of fuel for the other one. That's why we took the balloon to the aetheric air current on the Lathi.”
“And obviously the ship returned here safely,” Lord Engal muttered, walking past them. “We need to search the rest of the island.”
But they found nothing, just trees, flowers, and bird nests.
CHAPTER FIVE
When they finally finished the search of the island, it was time for dinner, though there were several hours of daylight left before the next eclipse. Emilie ate with the others in the passenger lounge this time, since she knew they would be discussing what to do next and she didn't want to miss anything.
She sat in the back, eating a potted chicken sandwich, trying to stay unobtrusive. Captain Belden was here, as well as Dr. Barshion, Ricard, and Abendle, the engineer. The last three men looked terribly weary; they must have been working almost non-stop on the aetheric engine. Ricard's head was still bandaged from his encounter with the Sargasso creature.
“They could have taken the airship to the aetheric current, to test their repairs,” Lord Engal said, thinking aloud. “But why abandon the Cirathi ship?” He turned to Kenar, eyeing him uncertainly. “Your crew weren’t eager to travel to our world, were they?”
Kenar rubbed his eyes. With the scales and the fur, it was hard to see how affected he was, but Emilie thought his shoulders were tense and his usual calm self-possession was gone. Sounding a little exasperated, he said, “Not at all. Until we met Dr. Marlende and his crew, we thought your world a legend. We have our own concerns here. They could spare me for a brief visit, to help pay our debt to Marlende, but there is just no reason the others would make the trip.”
Captain Belden said, “Dr. Marlende could have left with the airship, and something attacked the ship's crew before they could leave the island.”
Emilie saw Kenar's jaw tighten at the thought. Miss Marlende sat forward impatiently. “This kind of speculation is useless. Our assumption must be that someone or something attacked the island, and both crews were forced to flee in the airship.”
Kenar looked up, his expression thoughtful, and Emilie found herself nodding. If something like the Sargasso creatures, or worse, had attacked, the airship would be the quickest way to escape. “The airship might have run out of fuel then, and be stuck on another island,” she said.
Captain Belden frowned at her, as if he didn't think she should be giving her opinion, but Miss Marlende said, “Yes, that could very well be it. The question is, how do we find them?”
“There hasn't been a peep out of the wireless, not that it's supposed to be much use down here,” Oswin said, sounding glum. “We can't track them through the air or the water. It's not as if they'll have left tracks.”
Abendle cleared his throat. “They might have.”
Intrigued, Lord Engal twisted around to stare at him. “Yes? Speak up, man.”
Abendle stepped forward, seeming uneasy with all the sudden attention, but he said, “Aetheric engines do leave tracks, My Lord, when they aren't traveling through aetheric currents.”
“But the airship's aetheric engine was damaged.” Miss Marlende looked uncertainly from Abendle to Dr. Barshion. “They shut it down to use the airship's conventional engine.”
“If it's even them still running the airship,” Oswin said. “If something didn't attack both crews to steal it.” Captain Belden nudged his shoulder in silent remonstrance.
Emilie didn't think Oswin was speaking out of turn. There was surely no one on the ship who hadn't considered the possibility that the Cirathi crew, and Dr. Marlende and all his men, might be dead or captured by something. It was an awful possibility, but it was still a likely one.
“Aetheric engines can't ever really be shut down, once they're started up,” Abendle explained. “The aether that powers them is still active, still producing power, and connecting with the aether in the air, if you see what I mean, even if the motile itself is not being used to draw the vehicle along an aetheric current. It's as if it pulls bits of aether into itself, and leaks bits out as it moves along. Like a normal engine will leak oil. Those bits will be clumped up, so to speak, much thicker than the normal concentrations of aether in the air.” He appealed to Dr. Barshion. “Isn't that true, sir?”
Everyone turned to Barshion. “Well, yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “It's a possibility. But I'm not sure how an aetheric engine would behave here, in this world. Its aetheric composition is different from our own, you know.”
Kenar was sitting up straight, listening intently. He looked hopeful for the first time since they had seen the empty Cirathi ship. Miss Marlende said, “We can try, surely.”
Emilie eyed Barshion, not sure why he was so reluctant. It's not as if we have a lot of other pressing things to do while we wait for him to fix our aetheric engine, she thought. Everyone else, even Lord Engal, seemed game to go on with the search.
“Yes, how would this be accomplished, Barshion?” Lord Engal said. “There should be some way to detect the traces of aether left behind...” He snapped his fingers. “The aether navigator!” He jumped to his feet, forgetting he still had a sandwich plate in his lap. He caught it agilely before it fell onto anyone's head, and handed it off to Captain Belden. “It should detect the presence of aether, any aether, even a small fragment in the air!”
Lord Engal dashed off down the corridor to the stairwell, apparently intending to test this immediately. Everyone set plates and cups aside as they hurried to follow.
In the wheelhouse, Dr. Engal, with Dr. Barshion and Captain Belden, poked at the aetheric navigator, making minute adjustments to its silver wheel, and turning it this way and that. Miss Marlende stood nearby, managing to look over the shorter Dr. Barshion's shoulder, but Kenar stood back at the port, look
ing toward the abandoned ship.
Emilie angled around, trying to get a good view without getting in the way or juggling anybody's arm. She finally found a spot where she could look under Lord Engal's elbow.
Emilie had read descriptions of aether navigators in her favorite sea adventures, but never seen one in person. The aether navigator had a flat silver plate, etched around with the symbols and degrees of the compass directions. Two silver rings could be rotated around it, apparently to help figure longitude and latitude, though Emilie couldn't quite follow how. On the plate itself, in a shallow dish, there was a silvery substance that looked like mercury, but was actually drops of clarified, stable aether. It would roll around as the plate was turned and rotated, pointing the way toward aether currents in the air and water.
Then Dr. Barshion said quietly, “Wait, wait. I think that's it.”
“Yes, it's reacting to a concentration of aether somewhere nearby.” Captain Belden carefully marked a spot on the outer ring. “But could it be traces from the airship's earlier movements, when it first arrived at the island?”
Tilting the navigator's wheel slightly, Dr. Barshion muttered, “I don't think it would remain that long...aether outside a current dissipates relatively quickly. And we know they were here for some time, preparing the balloon to make the attempt to get help from the surface...” The base plate tilted, sending the stable aether skittering around its shallow bowl. He stepped back, shaking his head, grimacing. “I'm sorry, I've pushed it out of alignment.”
“No, no.” Lord Engal frowned, catching the plate, his big hands unexpectedly gentle as he turned and angled it slightly. “Look at this; it's picking up something on the lower strata. Belden, you know more about surface aether navigation, is that what it looks like...?”
Belden leaned forward, reading the marks. “Faint traces in the water. Yes, My Lord. It's definitely there. That's going toward the east...” He glanced up at Miss Marlende. “Could the airship float?”
“Float?” She glanced at Kenar, brows lifted. “I suppose the main cabin might be somewhat buoyant, but I can't imagine that they would try to turn it into a boat. If they had all needed to leave by water, surely they would have taken the Cirathi ship.”
Kenar came forward, his scaly brow furrowed. “No, there was no plan for that... Perhaps another ship arrived, placed the airship on board, and carried it away.”
“It would have to be a large ship.” Miss Marlende paced away, shaking her head as she thought it over. “But it would be possible.”
“Did your people encounter anything like that in this area?” Belden asked Kenar, apparently forgetting how much he disliked him under the excitement of the mystery. “A vessel large enough to transport the airship? Or a settlement capable of building one?”
“No. In fact, we thought this area was mostly uninhabited.” Kenar pulled the folded square of map out of a pocket inside his shirt and moved over to the chart table to spread it out.
Oswin put in, “That empty city we passed, whoever built that must have had a fleet of ships.”
Lord Engal followed Kenar to the chart table. “Yes, of course, but it must have been abandoned for a century or more, long enough for the sea to shift.”
“Unless it was built in the sea originally,” Emilie said. If there were creatures here as strange as the Sargasso people, she didn't think mermen who lived half underwater and half above it were too far beyond the realm of possibility.
The others hadn't heard, but Miss Marlende stopped and stared at her for a moment. Long enough for Emilie to realize she had possibly said something very stupid. But Miss Marlende just pointed at her and said, “Keep that in mind.”
Tracing routes on the map, Kenar was saying, “One of the reasons we wanted to explore in this region is because so little was known about it. We know a great deal about far-flung areas of our world because of traders passing along maps and information. But no maps exist of this place, as far as we know. Except this one, which we were drawing up as we went along.”
“You hadn't explored in this direction?” Lord Engal tapped a spot on the map.
“Due east from this island? Not yet. Dr. Marlende hadn't ventured that way either. But we did see signs of ancient occupation, the remnants of very old buildings, similar to the flooded city we surfaced near. That was here, here, and here.” Kenar marked the points on the map. “Nothing we saw was anywhere near as large or as extensive as that city. But if these people once spread throughout this area, there may still be remnants of them living now.”
Lord Engal nodded thoughtfully. “The question is: why would Dr. Marlende accompany these people? Could they have promised him help with the airship? Their old city was nearly right atop an aetheric fissure; they may have had their own knowledge of aetheric engines.”
“That might be true,” Miss Marlende said. “If the Cirathi weren't missing. There might have been a reason for my father to leave with these hypothetical people, but not the Cirathi.”
“Yes.” Kenar frowned down at the map, still lost in thought. “My people wouldn't have abandoned their ship. Not unless it was a choice between that and death.”
Which really, Emilie thought, is what we all thought as soon as we saw the empty island. She just hoped they were all still alive, wherever they were.
After some discussion, they decided to tow the Cirathi ship behind them. Rigging this up took some time, but the sailing ship was light compared to the Sovereign's bulk, and it didn't seem to slow their pace. Emilie thought it seemed optimistic, too, implying that they were going to find the missing crews. They also topped off the Sovereign's water supply from the freshwater spring on the island, refilled the casks aboard the Cirathi ship, and replenished the food stores with some fruit and wild melons that Kenar said were good to eat.
The Sovereign turned east, following the tiny traces of aether. They had to go slowly, to give Captain Belden and Lord Engal time to adjust the navigator.
Steaming down a wide channel between scattered islands, they had come some distance by the time the Dark Wanderer started to move over the sun. These islands were different from the others, flat and low, with wide beaches, green reeds growing thickly out into the water, and shorter brushier trees. Up on the second deck, Miss Marlende lowered her spyglass and said to Kenar and Emilie, “Does this channel look man-made to you?”
Emilie nodded. From up here, she could see how the shape of the islands lining the channel seemed oddly regular. They might have been naturally sculpted by the water to look that way, but still, it was strange. “It does. It looks like a big canal, like someone chopped out whatever was in the middle and left the edges.” The light wind moved the reeds, and the air smelled of sun and sand and a little like the jasmine toilet water her aunt had been sent as a gift from relatives in Coress. Except this wasn't cloying, it was clean and fresh.
“I agree.” Kenar leaned on the rail. “Which implies that this channel leads somewhere.” He seemed outwardly relaxed, but Emilie looked at his hands, so tight on the railing it was stretching the scaly skin over his knuckles.
“We'll find them,” Emilie told him impulsively, though she was well aware that she was in no position to make promises. “All of them.”
“I know. I won't give up hope until we-” Kenar broke it off, shook his head, and smiled down at her, though the smile was a little wry. “When you get back to your own world, will you really be content to sit meekly in a school after all this?”
Miss Marlende, engrossed with her spyglass again, snorted. “Whatever she does, I doubt she'll do it meekly.”
“I don't know,” Emilie said, looking out over the sun-drenched islands. Though inwardly she was a little pleased by Miss Marlende's comment, she wasn't sure how she felt about all this yet. As if all her life she had thought her world was one thing: closed-in and solid with carefully defined boundaries; so much so that running away to a relative with a respectable girls’ school in Silk Harbor was almost unimaginably daring. Now the boun
daries had fallen away, leave a broad vista that was stranger than anything she had read in a gothic novel.
Going back behind the walls would be very hard.
As the eclipse's line of darkness swept across the sea and the sandbars and islands, more crewmen were posted outside on the decks and the ship's lamps were lit. Emilie wanted to see how things were going in the wheelhouse without being labeled a snoop, so she managed to be on the spot when Mrs. Verian needed to send a tray of tea mugs and buns up to the men working there. Emilie hurried to volunteer herself.
She carried it up to the wheelhouse, where a young crewman directed her to set the tray on the chart table. As the other crewmen stationed there helped themselves, she lingered to watch Captain Belden and Lord Engal making minute adjustments to the navigator, and hastily scribbling notes on pads of paper. Sometimes they told the crewman manning the wheel to adjust their course slightly.
It surprised her to see that Lord Engal was so adept at this. She knew he wasn't one of those very rich men who did nothing with his time but hunt and buy horses. Emilie had read about lords who were members of the Philosophers' Society and spent all their time and money hiring philosophers and sorcerers to discover things and form theories and write books, and she knew Lord Engal must be one of them. But she hadn't expected him to be someone who could do some of the work himself.
Captain Belden yawned, quickly covering his mouth with his sleeve. “Excuse me, My Lord.”
“You're excused,” Lord Engal said absently. “Do you think we should travel through the night, again? We survived our previous experience, but I'd hate to run out of luck.”
Belden glanced out of the big window, thinking it over. The line of darkness was nearly upon them, coming at an angle toward the long narrow island on their port side. “I'd rather not run up on whatever it was that took the airship, without some sort of warning. But I'm not sure we can afford to lose a full eight hours.”