“Very well, sir,” Folkestone finally relented. “But I think it’s just one of those yarns rummy spacers spin to cadge drinks from young Turks out on the Grand Tour, just shaggy dog stories that get shaggier and longer in the tooth with each telling.”
“You may be right, Folkestone,” the Admiral admitted. “In fact it may well turn out to be naught but a mare’s nest, but it’s an aspect that must be followed up. And, truth to tell, I’d much rather have you two on the scent if it does turn out to be anything more than any of Section 6’s spook johnnies. Don’t really trust them.”
Lady Cynthia glanced sharply at her father but held her tongue.
“I want you two on the first aethership to Mercury,” the officer continued. “Get your clothes on so you can be on your way as soon as the sawbones gives you his blessing.”
Folkestone gestured sharply with a jerk of his head.
The Admiral smiled. “Cynthia, would you please give Captain Folkestone some privacy so he can get his trousers on.”
“Yes, of course, Father,” she said coolly, cheeks reddening.
“Wait for me, will you, Cynthia?” the Admiral said.
She nodded and closed the door behind her.
Swiftly Folkestone donned his uniform. He paused in front of the looking glass, seeing his bruises, and decided he had perhaps been a little too harsh with Hand about his own battered looks. Just as he pulled his boots on the doctor entered, accompanied by the Lowland Martian nursing sister. The medico prodded and thumped, checked Folkestone’s vision and listened to his heart. He gazed at the chart for a moment, signed the release form, nodded curtly to the men, and left as quickly as he had entered.
“Well, there you are,” Admiral Barrington-Welles said. “As I said, I want you two on the next aethership out of Syrtis Major, so have at it. By the by, the indications are that your two assassins did get off Mars, that stolen aether craft, you know, but keep your eyes open and your wits about you.”
“Yes, sir,” Folkestone said. “You may count on that.”
“Good luck and good hunting, gentlemen,” the Admiral said as he headed out. He paused. “It may well be that I’m sending you on a snipe hunt, but I don’t think so. Trouble seems to seek you out no matter where you go, so make sure you use the journey to Mercury to rest up and prepare for the worst.”
Folkestone and Hand nodded.
Almost out the door, the Admiral whipped around and grinned mischievously. “Sergeant Hand, make sure you keep a weather eye out for any ‘varmints’ up to no good.”
Hand tried to acknowledge the advice, but only a strangled gasp came out of his mouth, and his cheeks darkened to a color between orange and purple. Then the door was closed and the only sound in the room was Folkestone’s deep chuckles.
“I believe the Old Man has your number, Hand.”
Hand growled, but he looked at the bundle of books, grinning.
“Ready, Hand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Folkestone said, seeing to the last of his toilet. “We will stop by quarters, get our kits, then head for the aetherport.”
As they left the room, they saw Lady Cynthia and the Admiral at the far end of the corridor engaged in animated conversation.
“What do you suppose that is about. Sir?”
“Let’s go before we find out.”
* * *
“I don’t like the way these Section 6 chappies order you here and there,” the Admiral continued, remembering her advice to keep his voice low. “That little escapade in the Belt could have ended quite badly for you. I should not have let you go.”
“You had no choice, Father, just as I had no choice,” she said. “I must do my part on behalf of the Empire, as we all must. These are perilous times, no room for timidity. Besides, I never was in any real danger. Robert and Felix were the ones nearly killed.”
“It’s a miracle they were not killed, but Folkestone and Hand are soldiers. Danger is an inherent part of the life they have chosen to lead, but they would not have faced that danger had it not been for your situation,” the Admiral pointed out. “Don’t forget, young lady, they would not have been out there at all had you not let the mission exceed your mandate. At the first sign of trouble, you should have ordered Captain Wax to turn and run.”
She shrugged. “The situation developed too quickly to allow us to do anything but what we did.”
“Perhaps,” he grumbled. “But I should not have sent you.”
“You had to send someone to investigate the Pandora angle,” she said. “If you had not agreed with Section 6 to send me, you would have no doubt sent those two. You trust them as you trust me, and the result might have been the same. Or worse.”
“I cannot deny that,” the Admiral admitted. “And had I asked them, they would have gone without the slightest hesitation.”
“Yes, they are extremely brave,” Cynthia said peering over her father’s shoulder.
The Admiral looked behind him but saw only an empty hospital corridor. He turned back and saw a faint smile upon her lips.
“What do you find so blasted amusing?” he demanded.
“That you would expect me to be any different,” she said. “Mother always said I was too much like you for my own good.”
A wan smile curved the Admiral’s lips and for a moment his eyes took on a faraway unfocused aspect. “Yes, I suppose she was right,” he allowed. “She was right about so many things.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Lady Cynthia said after a moment.
“But I do,” the Admiral said. “Courage does not protect you from harm.” He reached up and traced the curve of her temple near the eyepatch. “This, too, could have been much worse.”
“But it wasn’t,” she reminded him. “And I was not the one who ended up pitching into the volcano, was I?”
The Admiral shuddered, but made no comment. That incident was ancient history, and he knew the folly of trying to use it to make her change her ways. He thought about again bringing up the matter of the artificer or at least a glass eye, but decided against it. At least this time, she would not be in danger. What could happen to her in the heart of the Empire?
“I really have to be on my way, Father,” she said finally. “You read my orders. Next possible transport to London.”
“The next aethership, if I remember my Bradshaw, departs around the same time as Folkestone’s ship,” he said.
“That may be, but I have errands to run first.”
“You do, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Ah, well, aetherships passing in the night and all that,” the old man sighed, garnering a sharp look from his daughter. “I am very fond of Robert Folkestone, you know. He is a fine man.”
She scowled. “He’s rather pompous, very full of himself.”
“I certainly hope that is not a crime,” the Admiral said. “If so, I would never got out of the brig.”
“Well, I suppose being full of oneself can be an endearing trait at that,” she admitted. “But you should not expect Captain Robert Folkestone to ever be anything more than a friend.”
The Admiral nodded, but his moustache quivered a little as a smile tried to emerge. He thought he was successful at concealing his faint mockery of her words, but saw from her expression that he was not as successful as he had thought.
“Well, do have a care while you are in London, my dear,” he said. “I do not know the full contents of the papers Inspector Slaughter brought back from France, with that Poulpe girl, but it seems the MEDUSA group has quite a few tentacles.”
She nodded, reluctant to discuss classified matters in such a public place. As her father had said, MEDUSA had many tentacles, even in the heart of the Empire. Also, she had been cautioned by Section 6 to keep the matter to herself, and that included her father.
Sensing her discomfort, the Admiral said: “I suppose I know all I need to know to handle matters on Mars and the surrounding spaces. We’re coordinating, you
know, with Baphor-Ta to run to ground any agents of MEDUSA.”
“How is that going?”
“Well enough that I was fairly confident in telling Folkestone that Zimmer and Tanaka are no longer on Mars,” he answered. “If nothing else, this matter has caused all the Courts to work together for once. When was the last time that happened?”
“It’s the Martian psyche,” she said.
The Admiral canted his head in confusion.
“Show the Martians a clear and present danger and they will argue the matter to death,” she explained. “Let them be surrounded by shadows and they’re terrified into cooperation.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Have a safe trip. And as I told Folkestone, keep your wits about you.”
“Oh I shall,” Lady Cynthia assured her father, though she could tell from his expression he was full of misgivings and doubts. “I’ll return as soon as I can; maybe then, we’ll have put all this behind us and be able to talk more openly.”
Admiral Barrington-Welles watched as his daughter took her leave. He thought about detailing a guard to accompany her about Syrtis Major and to the aetherport, then dismissed the idea. Not only would she have not allowed it, he doubted any officer he assigned could be more well armed or deadly than his own daughter.
No, she was definitely not the kind of girl to end up tossed into a volcano.
* * *
Detective Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter was glad to be out of France and back in London, but he would have been happier had his temporary masters at Section 6 released him back to his duties at Scotland Yard. He would much rather be clapping the shoulders of murderers and other villains than boxing with shadows.
Still, he had to admit, most villains were not as pretty as Marie Poulpe. All alone in the world, she was in need of friends. Slaughter was happy to be a friend, unexpectedly so, he thought, for he had always worked hard to distance himself from relationships that might come between him and his chosen profession. For all his efforts to avoid entanglement, there was something about the young girl that touched even his flinty heart.
While her father had done his best to keep Marie out of his association with MEDUSA, he had not been entirely successful. She had a quick and inventive mind, and a keen eye for observation. The scientists and analysts of Section 6 could muddle their way through the documents that had come from Mars and Paris, but she brought an understanding of the dead scientist and insights to his world that could not have come from any other source.
For those reasons, she held continuing value to shadowy lords of Section 6, who fought battles beyond the ken of any army or navy. For those same reasons the threat from MEDUSA against her was still an existential one.
“Ethan, are we going to London today?” Marie asked as she entered the sitting room.
Slaughter looked up from the message slip printed by the aether facsimile machine. It had been delivered a few minutes earlier by the inn’s landlord, a Section 6 operative. The remote country inn was a way station for agents and other persons of interest as they were moved from one locale to another, or, as in the case of Marie Poulpe, kept away from prying eyes.
“Yes, we’ll taking the 11.27 in from the station,” he replied.
She sighed as she sat. “More questions about my father and his work, most of which I will not be able to answer as they wish.”
“No doubt,” he admitted. “But we’ll also be meeting with Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles.”
“The name is familiar, but I…”
“Her father is Admiral Sir Geoffrey Barrington-Welles, First Space Lord for the Outer Region of the Solar System,” he said. “She also works for Section 6, at least now and then, from what I know of it, which, admittedly, is not much.”
Marie shrugged.
He put aside the message. “Marie, is something wrong?”
“Oh, Ethan, I am just so tired of the intrigue, the feeling I am surrounded by unseen enemies,” she complained. “As if I am boxe de l'ombre…how do you say it in English?”
“Shadow boxing?”
"Exactement!"
“I am sure we’ve left those shadows behind us,” he assured her.
“And that woman?” She shuddered at the thought.
“Yes, her as well,” he replied, trying his best to sound more confident than he actually felt. “All part of the past.”
“The reason we are here then?” she persisted.
“Merely an abundance of caution,” he said. “Section 6 controls the surrounding area, can better keep track on who comes and goes, the actions of strangers and all that. Harder to hide mischief and evil intent here than in London.”
She nodded vaguely, but he saw his assurances had not brought her any peace of mind. Truth was, he realized, he was not himself convinced that the terror and violence was behind them. The escapes in the café and on the train had been more a matter of luck than anything else. The tide could as easily have gone against them, and he was vaguely uneasy that it had not.
And, yes, there was still the matter of the female assassin. Not being dead or captured, there was still the possibility that, despite all the actions taken by himself and Section 6, another attempt might be made on Marie’s life.
“Why are we meeting with this Lady Cynthia?” Marie asked.
“The full situation has not been revealed to me,” he admitted. “But, from what I gather, she discovered some kind of research station on an asteroid called Pandora…”
She started at the name.
“What is it?” Slaughter asked. “Does that mean something?”
She nodded. “My father once mentioned Pandora.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Pandora not only brought pain and despair, but also hope for the future, a way to bring order to chaos,” Marie explained. “I thought he referred to the myth, but I thought it odd at the time.”
“Odd? In what way?”
“My father was not a man overly concerned with literature or mythology,” she replied. “He valued my studies in mathematics and the natural and applied sciences, but he thought my studies in the liberal arts, in literature and music, a waste of time. I thought at first he despised those subjects, but I decided eventually that he held them in no high regard simply because he did not understand them.” She paused a moment and canted her head, as if trying to recall some forgotten memory. “I thought it odd he would cite the myth of Pandora, but now that I think of it, he did not say Pandora had brought pain and despair, but that she would bring pain and despair.” She paused again, trying to dredge up the recollection. “In fact, he did not say she when talking about hope and order but it. I thought he was, in his often imperfect way, trying to find some kind of commonality with me, but…I suppose even then I knew it was nothing but wishful thinking on my part.”
“Fathers often try, but fail,” Slaughter murmured.
“No,” she said. “I did not understand then that he and I spoke languages sharing only a commonality of sound. I do now.”
He watched her carefully, but made no comment, fearful that he might inadvertently share more about his own past than he wanted to admit to her, or himself.
“Perhaps I should not go to your Section 6 friends in London, or meet with this Lady Cynthia.” She slumped back in the chair. “What can I tell them? My father was a stranger to me.”
“We all have to do what we must to end the danger posed by the MEDUSA organization,” he insisted. “You may feel you did not know your father as well as you wanted, but there is no one else who knows him at all. Perhaps talking to Lady Cynthia, if nothing else, will help you with your feelings about your father. The two of you have some commonalities when it come to fathers.”
“This Lady Cynthia,” Marie said. “You know her?”
He nodded. “I worked with her and some others almost a year ago on another matter.”
“And what matter was that?”
“I wish
I could tell you, Marie, but I am bound by the strictures of the Official Secrets Act,” he replied. “Among other things.”
She shrugged.
“Believe me, Marie, when I tell you that none of this cloak and dagger skulking about is anything that I…”
“Cloak and dagger?”
“Spies, secret operatives, working in the shadows,” he said. “None of it really sits well with me. I am just a copper at heart.”
“Yet you are sent on secret missions by Section 6,” she said. “And foil assassins working for a sinister organization bent on interplanetary domination. It sounds like a calling.”
He frowned as he searched her face for indications of doubt or mockery. As he watched, the corners of her full lips trembled, then her mouth curved into a slight smile and her eyes twinkled. He sighed and shook his head.
“Well, even so,” he said, returning her smile though with a hint of embarrassment, “I really am just a simple copper, a thief-taker more suited to running common villains to ground than dealing with conspiracies and planet-hopping criminals. But in that other matter, I was thrown into a situation where I was helpful to Section 6 and Her Majesty’s Government, so they tapped me to help them again in this present crisis. After all this is behind us, you will see what my life is really like.”
Marie lowered her gaze.
“What is the matter?”
“When this is over, when Section 6 no longer has use for either of us, you will return to your work for Scotland Yard, and I…” She paused and looked up, her eyes moist. “I will return to my life.”
“There is no need for that,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
He reached across the distance between them and took her small soft hand in his. She did not pull away, as he feared she might. They stared at each other for a long soundless moment.
“Marie, like I told you, I’m just a copper, nothing more,” he said. “I’m a simple man, direct to the point of being bluff, and often find myself saying things that are taken in ways I never meant.”
Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2) Page 26