by George Wier
Ross said, “Billy, can you fit your hand and fingers in there to check it?”
“I can try.” Billy worked his arm into position and angled his hand so the middle finger could slide in the hole. It was snug, but he got it inside. “I’m touching something in there.”
“See if you can slide it left or right.”
“It’s moving.”
“Good. Now see if you can feel a bump on the surface.”
“Yes. Is that a screw slot I’m feeling?”
“It is, now use this driver to tighten it. Do not over tighten.”
“How do I know when it is tight enough?”
“Firm is all it has to be. It will naturally hold in place after that.”
Billy took the tiny screwdriver and said, “This looks like the ones they use on eyeglasses.”
“It is. But it works fine. Now tighten it, please.”
Billy struggled for a while, getting cramps in his hand, but he eventually got the blade in the slot and tightened the screw. Firmly.
Ross clapped his shoulder and said, “Nicely done, Billy.” He moved to a tool cabinet, opened it and removed a bottle of bonded whiskey, the good stuff, Billy noticed. “We should have a drink to celebrate.”
Ekka said, “I believe so.”
Billy said, “I’m game.”
Ross found three coffee cups and filled them all to the brim. He said, “Salud,” and tilted the cup.
Ekka followed suit, as did Billy.
When they finished, Billy said, “Now that will put a rosy outlook on the rest of your day.”
Ross said, “You and Ekka are welcome any time. You know where I keep it.”
“Much obliged, “Billy said.
Ekka touched Billy’s arm. “Come, we have more work to do before tomorrow night’s ascending.”
Ekka led Billy to her bed in the sleeping quarters and pulled a slender suitcase from the small trunk beside it. As she opened it, she said, “If we are boarded by pirates, it will be hand to hand.” The suitcase contained six slender knives with etched handles and similarly filigreed scabbards. Each knife was sixteen inches long and one and one half inches wide. “These I brought from the Caucasus. They were the kinzhals of my father and brothers.” She drew one from the sheath. It was beautiful and sleek, with a straight, narrow, needle-pointed blade sharpened on both edges and a blood groove down the center on both sides. The metal shone from repeated polishing and sharpening. Ekka handed Billy the one she held.
Billy said, “It’s a heck of a gift, your father’s knife.” He handled it with respect.
Ekka grinned, showing her white teeth. The word radiant came to Billy’s mind. She said, “I will want it back, Billy.”
“Oh! Well sure.”
“It will serve you well if they board. Is your pistol available?”
Billy patted his coat on the side. “Always.”
“If the airships are close enough for you to shoot one of the pirates, do so. I think they may try to talk their way on board first, using the women.”
“Women pirates?”
“They are some of the worst of the lot. No mercy. If you hesitate, they will kill you.”
“Okay.”
“Wear the kinzhal from now until we safely land.”
“I will.”
Ekka removed two of the knives and slid the scabbards on a leather and brass-studded belt and put it around her waist. One blade on each side.
Billy said, “Do you fight with both at the same time?”
“Yes.” She closed the suitcase and put it in the trunk. “Now, let us find Jay-Patten.”
“I guess he can spritz those pirates with perfume when they board.”
Ekka looked at him, “You are young, Billy.”
“You and I are the same age.”
“I have seen much of the world, and you have not. Do not be so quick to judge, for the heart of a person cannot be known by how they dress, or how they smell. They can be good or bad, angel or devil, hero or knave.”
Billy thought about that, and of his former bloody life as Billy Bonney, “Can they be both?”
Ekka looked for a long second at him, “Yes, they can.”
They located Denys at his bed, opening the canvas tubes. The first one contained the 6.5 JPM and Billy said, “What kind of rifle is that?” Denys explained, then handed him the weapon. Billy balanced it in his hands, then brought it to his shoulder, and finally handed it back to Denys. “That’s as light a feather, I swear. What does it weigh?”
Denys said, “Slightly more than one and one-half kilograms when loaded.”
“How much is that in pounds?”
“About three and a half.”
“Accurate?”
“Highly.”
“How far out there can you bring something down?
Denys began opening the second tube as he said, “In your American parlance, the maximum range is fifteen hundred yards. I have personally dropped African game at just under one thousand yards.”
“I sure would like to see what Billy Dixon could do with something like that.”
“Billy Dixon?”
“Friend of mine from a while back. He was a buffalo hunter and Army scout. He once shot a Comanche off his horse at fifteen hundred yards.”
Denys became very interested. “What type of scope did he use?”
“No scope, open sights. He used a Sharps.”
“That is…phenomenal shooting.”
“We all thought so. None of the other buff hunters even attempted a shot like that. But those men were all good shots out to seven, eight hundred yards, and Bat Masterson said that kind of shooting saved their bacon at Adobe Walls.”
“I should think so.” Denys next removed a beautiful, engraved side-by-side weapon. “This is my double, a 500 Nitro Express. It is my lion rifle in the bush, where shooting is close. It has great impact on the target.”
Billy picked up one of the huge cartridges, as wide as his thumb and three times as long. “I can imagine.”
The weapon Denys removed from the last canvas tube was a conventional double-barreled twelve gauge shotgun. “I keep this one for bird hunting,” Denys said. He leaned all three against the wall by his bed, muzzles up.
Ekka said, “Keep them near and ready, Denys. We may have trouble tomorrow night. Or sooner.”
“Brigands?”
“Of a sort. Sky pirates.”
Billy added, “And any friends they may have on the ground.”
Jay-Patten nodded, “I will be ready if needed.”
Billy tossed him the 500 Nitro Express cartridge and said, “Bring some of these along if the party starts.”
Denys grinned, “Assuredly.”
[ 6 ]
“What’s with all the foliage?” Tesla asked. They were inside the Arcadia, at the heart of the ship—the huge cylinder containing the engine room and the engine itself, Merkam’s transmogrifier. Tesla pointed at the emerald green blanket of tiny ferns that enveloped the exterior of the engine room.
“Oxygen, man. Oxygen,” Merkam stated. “The other problem was the obviously foreseeable buildup of breath gasses.”
“Ah. Carbon dioxide,” Tesla intoned.
“Why along the side?” Billy Gostman asked.
Merkam continued, “What are the walls now will be the floors or ceilings later on. I think you’ll find them a nice cushion, should they ever need to be used as such.”
“Impressive,” Denys Jay-Patten said. To Jay-Patten’s right was Abigail Ross, the steam engineer’s wife.
“Not as impressive as the cost for all this,” Mrs. Ross stated. On the surface it seemed an offhand remark, but she was known for her scalpel wit—especially when Merkam was around. The two had a history of sorts, this was plain. Merkam ignored her.
“Not only carbon dioxide, but water vapor. With nine people breathing in such limited space over the course of some days or weeks, a regular cloud would form in here, and I would prefer having no weather during this
trip.”
“Weeks...” Tesla began, but his voice trailed off.
“Right, now if you’ll come this way, I’ll show you the true beating heart of the Arcadia.” Merkam climbed four short iron steps, stepped up onto the railed landing at the top of the massive cylinder, and waited. When everyone was present, he proceeded. “Now, if you’ll look down there, you’ll see Steam Ross busy making last-minute adjustments to the transmogrifier.”
“Trans-what?” Jay-Patten asked.
“I am so very much thinking that no such word is of existence in the English,” Koothrappally said.
“True, Professor Koothrappally. But in engineering, we take a word and give it a bit of a twist to explain a thing that has not heretofore existed, as you so eloquently put it. Trans would mean travel, of course. The –ier suffix should be sufficient in itself.”
“What about the Mog? Or the Mogrif?” Billy Gostman asked. Leave it to Billy to ask exactly the wrong question.
Merkam patted his chest and made a show of clasping his open vest. He nodded a few times. “Well. That is a good question. We’re not exactly sure what you would call what it does. It defies the language. You are all familiar with Sir Isaac Newton, I’m sure.”
“Never met the hombre,” Billy said.
The others chuckled, and Billy blushed.
“Quite,” Merkam continued. “You see, according to gravity theory, we and every object on this Earth is held down by the force of gravity. But say that you were to suspend that force somehow. What would happen?”
“Yes. What?” Tesla asked.
“We do know that the Earth travels around the sun in a fairly circular fashion and returns to its exact starting point in roughly three hundred and sixty-five days, give or take. Therefore, the Earth is traveling at an amazing velocity.”
Koothrappally began dotting the air with his finger. His eyelids fluttered for a moment and he spoke in a whisper, “Ninety-three million times pi squared...orbit of...” his voice trailed off, then, “divided by three hundred sixty five...my goodness gracious, but I am seeing six thousand and six hundred miles in the hour. But then the thing is spinning on itself at one thousand miles in the hour, and...oh my goodness!”
“Well put,” Jay-Patten said.
“It is safe to say that if such a force were applied to instantly break the iron bonds of what we call gravity—but which I assure you is a singular lie—then the Earth, and the moon itself, which is bound to the Earth, would fly away from us, leaving us stranded in space.”
“We’d have to wait a year for it to come back around,” Billy said. “That sounds about right.”
“No, we would be stranded forever,” Merkam said. “All of my astronomical research shows that the stars are moving through the ether at an alarming rate. The constellations, for instance, of the ancient Egyptians and the Mayans show the stars in slightly different quarters than they exist today.”
“I don’t know about taking this trip all of a sudden,” Abigail Ross said.
“Don’t worry,” Merkam said. “That’s where the transmogrifier comes in. We very finely control the flow of the electromagnetic spectrum around this ship. When the steel ball inside the transmogrifier spins, it travels at amazing speeds. As it does, the magnets surrounding it are fed varying amounts of electrical current, thanks to Mister Tesla’s theories—”
“Aha! So you admit that you are using my patent!”
“Not even close,” Merkam said to Tesla. “I took some of your early theories and expanded upon them.” To the remainder of his company he continued, “Instead of completely divorcing ourselves from the Earth, we do so only partially, enough to give us buoyancy in the atmosphere. Once outside the atmosphere, we actually attune ourselves to the Moon, and appear to it as a bullet directed at its heart. But that is enough for now. Allow me to conduct you to the bridge, where you can see more clearly how we are to fly.”
“I want to see the robots,” Billy said. Merkam’s bullet-to-the-heart language was enough to freeze the blood in his veins.
The crowd ignored him and Merkam began the long climb to the apex of the structure. Billy turned to go back down alone. He’d already seen the bridge. Maybe he’d find Ekka and have a talk with her.
As he turned to go down the steps, he didn’t see the long gaze of Abigail Ross following his every movement.
[ 7 ]
Billy could not find Ekka anywhere with the ship or the shop beneath it. He made his way across the compound to Merkam House and went in through the kitchen, the only entrance he ever used.
He found Ekka in Merkam’s voluminous library, looking through a stack of books on Russian history.
“Thought I might find you here,” he said.
She looked up from one of the easy chairs and her eyes settled on Billy. She held her gaze steady on him. The reading light illuminated her features—her high cheekbones, her narrow eyebrows, the perfect bow of her lips.
“And why is that, Billy Gostman? I never told you I liked to read.”
“I know. But you strike me as a smart woman, and smart women read.”
“And you have known many smart women?”
“A few,” he said.
Ekka closed the book and set it aside. “You wanted to speak with me?”
“I got bored with the tour, actually. I wanted to invite you for a stroll.”
“Strolls are dangerous things, Billy.”
“Are you talking about bad men trying to attack you while out for a simple walk? They wouldn’t dare, with me along.”
“I was possibly referring to good men trying to attack me. I do not respond well to attacks.”
Billy’s face flushed. Was he that transparent? Of course, any woman would see the invitation for a walk as an advance, and this woman was no fool.
“Doesn’t matter to me which one of us does the attacking,” he said.
A moment passed while she pondered how she was going to respond. Then, “Maybe later. I get so few chances to read, and I have not seen these books in any library outside of Russia and Europe. This is our last day, and tomorrow we will be too busy making preparations. Some other time. Would that be suitable?”
“Just being neighborly. I think I’ll go into town, wet my whistle.”
“Don’t drink too much of your American whiskey,” she said, when he turned to go.
“I won’t.”
Before Billy made it out the Library door, she said, “That was not a rebuff, Billy. That was a maybe. For the future.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Billy touched the brim of his hat. “That’s enough for me.”
[ 8 ]
The Silver Dollar Saloon had a smattering of clients that evening. There was a game of poker going on across the room, but it appeared to be low stakes. A couple of trail-dusty youths from a cattle drive on its way to Montana were in a drinking contest at the end of the bar, and it looked as though they had been engaged in that contest for some time. The pair had edged toward the passing-out stage, and when Billy glanced behind the bar, the bartender raised a knowing eyebrow, to which Billy nodded his agreement with the assessment. At the bar sat Jack Ross. Jack stared at a shot glass filled with amber liquid.
“You going to drink that, Mr. Ross, or just glare at it?” Billy asked.
“Right now I’m glaring. I haven’t decided to ingest it yet.”
“What’s the difficulty?”
Ross turned to Billy, who took a barstool beside him and propped his elbows up on the bar. “There’s no difficulty. It’s simply a contest.”
“What’s the contest? I only ask so I can know which side to bet on.”
Ross turned his gaze back to the glass. “It’s a contest of will. Do I ingest it, or do I not? If I do so, does it ingest me, and thereby do I lose the will to turn down another? Or do I win and call it quits before I start?”
Billy scratched his head. “That’s a hell of a thing, ain’t it?” Billy reached out and touched the glass with the tip of his finger, pus
hed it forward to tip just a bit, then released it and watched the whiskey slosh around inside it. “But it seems to me, Mr. Ross, that what you’re looking at is an inanimate object with no will of its own. It can’t influence you any more than the ceiling.”
Ross lifted his metallic arm and dropped it on the table. “This thing,” he said, “is also an inanimate object. Does it have a will? Not really, or at least it has no more will than I lend it. But why, then, is it so damnably ugly?”
“Does it beat having empty space where an arm used to be?” Billy asked. He looked at the bartender, who shook his head in the negative: Don’t go there, lad, was the clear message.
“Maybe, when I have real need of it. I guess the answer is, not by much. My luck hasn’t been so good.”
“I think it was one of them Europeans that said, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. Something like that.”
“Shakespeare, Mr. Gostman. Julius Caesar.” Ross pushed himself back from the bar with his mechanical arm and stood. “I think I’ll go back to the Arcadia. Run a final check of the transmogrifier. Abby is probably wondering where I am. I’ll let you finish the game for me, Billy. Tell me later which one of you wins.”
Ross patted Billy on the shoulder with his synthetic arm.
Billy shivered inside at the cold touch, but kept any outward show of displeasure in check. “I’ll take you up on that,” he said. “See ya, Jack.”
“See ya, Billy.”
Billy slid over to Ross’s vacated stool, propped his elbows on the bar and put his head in his hands and glared at the glass.
Once the batwing doors of the bar ceased to swing from Ross’s departure, the bartender took a step forward, propped both of his arms along the bar opposite Billy and said, “Now don’t you continue any of his bullshit, Billy. Drink the damned thing!”
Billy looked up and grinned. “That’s all I needed to hear.” He scooped up the glass, spun around to the rest of the room and yelled, “You hear that boys? This here’s a bar, and there’ll be no contests with the bottle. You’re to drink up what you’ve got in front of you!” Billy tossed the contents of the glass down in one whack.