by K. T. Hunter
He was certain that the women on Mars would not wear crowns of exotic flowers nor smell of coconut milk. The crew would be packed together in the Fury for quite some time, though, so in a sense he would not be "moving on" anytime soon. So perhaps he could talk to this Lady, hear her stories, examine the minute details of her dresses and her manners, or take a turn with her in the Garden. He could already picture her face among the cherry blossoms there, with petals falling all around her like pink snow.
He sighed the sigh of poets and rolled into his hammock -- hanging where his bed should have been -- for a brief rest before his next duty shift.
The wall above his desk was a veritable scrapbook of his numerous adventures. Plastered with daguerrotypes, tickets, and CDVs, it was a task to see the bulkhead beneath them. Tiny magnets that he had smuggled out of Dr. Pugh's office held them in place. He looked up at one picture of himself and the good scientist on one of their voyages and mock-saluted it. They were surrounded by portraits of Commander Maury, Lord Nelson, and Robert FitzRoy on the deck of the Beagle with Darwin. Sophie the Steamfitter peeked out at him from her hiding place between two pages of Maury's Sailing Directions in the row of books just below them.
An image of Tesla, another titan of his childhood, marked the Fury's entry in the latest edition of Jane's Fighting Ships. According to Pugh, the inventor had struggled before the Invasion and had just wanted a chance for his devices to be used, a chance to be proven right. Somehow, the tripods had not been able to get within several miles of Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island in America; the TIA had been eager to find out how he had managed such a feat. They had set him up with new facilities in New Zealand not long after that and given him his chance at glory. His new Tower in the mountains had beamed power all over the small island nation, including Dr. Pugh's laboratory. On his wall, Christophe had a tintype of the exterior of the Tower, a latter-day castle keep of scaffolding and wire.
Like Pugh, Tesla had been both fascinated and repelled by the information that they had found in the alien cylinders. Christophe had seen the inside of one of the vessels. There were no banks of instruments or controls of any sort. It was as if they had crammed themselves into tins and waited for their ballistic missiles to smash into something. The plans they had found inside the cylinders were much more complex.
Tesla, Pugh, and a host of other men had convened at that Tower many times during Christophe's youth. Often they were joined by another man, Hermann Oberth, who had assisted Tesla in the final designs of the main engine and the maneuvering thrusters for the Fury.
As Christophe had grown up, he was included more and more in their conversations, though it had taken him ages to comprehend even a handful of their words. From what he could gather, Tesla had managed the design of the plasma radio antenna, but Oberth had resigned his first love of chemical rocketry to help them solve the problem of generating the needed power. Tesla had been eager to work on that problem as well, but the TIA ministers had grown anxious about their timeline. Just before the lunar voyage, they'd drawn lots to determine the namesake of the engine itself -- would it be the young upstart Oberth, or the elderly wizard Tesla?
Tesla had not been very happy about the outcome, but the TIA had just increased the funding on his death ray experiments with Hui to soften the blow.
Using his foot, Christophe pushed away from the wall, making the hammock sway a little, since there were no ocean swells to do it for him. He was thankful and relieved that the drill had gone well. Maggie's idea had worked, after all. She would be pleased. Oberth had been a bit miffed about her contributions at first, as he did not consider her a proper scientist, but thankfully cooler heads had prevailed. The head might not be the most dignified of places to shelter, but over the years, he had found that dignity and good sense did not always mix well. Besides, there was the possibility of needing to shelter from a flare for hours at a time; one might need to take a wee during that time, so they would have needed toilets in the shelters at any rate. The combination of the two was a sheer stroke of genius on Maggie's part, in his opinion.
He couldn't tell if the close quarters had embarrassed the young lady or not. As beautiful as she was, Miss Llewellyn's face was an inscrutable mask. Other girls he had known would have been giggly and wriggly and talked too loud and far too much, but she had remained steady. He was eager to tell Maggie about her. But Maggie was busy now; it would have to wait.
He wiggled his toes inside his shoes and sighed. He missed strolling barefoot across the teak deck of the Kiwi, along with the endless wind and the smell of salt on the air. He longed for the hot sun on his face and could feel himself growing paler already as his tan faded beneath the artificial lights. He had resigned himself to the irony that he might be leaving those wonders behind forever in his voyage to ensure that they would endure. But he also knew that good company could outweigh many miseries.
Yes, Gemma Llewellyn is a damned fine lady, he thought to himself as he rocked his hammock again. He wondered what she thought of him.
~~~~
Gemma
What a wanker! Gemma thought.
The more she thought about the captain's tentacles wound around her in the water closet, the angrier she became. It wasn't the most ladylike of thoughts, but she was alone in the corridor after blowing her way past the rest of the Cohort and taking the lift back to the laboratory alone. There was no one to see or care. Mrs. Brightman was many miles away, out of the grabby grasp of that man, so her opinion really did not count. She marched down the corridor in a haze of fury. Only long years of training kept her from muttering her thoughts aloud.
Certainly, he was handsome; there was no doubt about that. She had met handsome men aplenty. Not all natural philosophers resembled Methuselah's elder brother. Mrs. Brightman had carefully, carefully taught her over the years to resist the charms of her targets, to the point where most of them repelled her, no matter their looks.
All men are tools to achieve an end, her headmistress had said. Their affections are beneath you. They are not worthy of your true feelings.
To her, Moreau was too beautiful and too warm to be real, especially now that she had seen him (and felt him and smelt him) up close. It was as if someone had drawn Sir Lancelot onto one of Mr. Humboldt's punch cards and shoved it into the Analytical Engine, only to have a randy captain pop out on the other side. The farcical image made her feel a trifle better, and her anger simmered down to a mere boil. She squared her shoulders and marched on towards Dr. Pugh's study, suddenly feeling a little less like she was answering a summons to the headmaster's office.
Pugh had sent her ahead of him, as he needed to chat with Hui and Father Alfieri. She puzzled over his line of thinking; with his reaction to her yesterday, why would he send her to his office unescorted? She could only conclude that he didn't use it as his real office any more than Mrs. Brightman used the College's second-best parlour as hers. She wondered where his true office was.
Dr. Pugh's chamber was quite small. The clutter within made it feel even smaller. This wasn't just the garden-variety sort of untidiness; she suspected some of the piles of paper pre-dated the lunar voyage. She scanned the room without touching anything, as was her habit when she had no particular objective in mind. Stacks of notebooks and journals were scattered all over the chamber, along with several editions of the Invasion Chronicle. A salad of languages and scripts, from Chinese to Arabic, marched across the loose pages that concealed what must have been his desk. She could make out the name "Moreau" at the bottom of one sheet that peeked out from underneath a book, but she dared not touch it no matter how much her fingers itched. He was The Captain; his name was liable to appear all over the ship. Her mission was yet too undefined to be caught sneaking about now, but oh! How she fought it! It would simply have to wait.
Many other scientists back on Earth would have given their left arm to be where Gemma was standing now. It once again amazed her how Mrs. Brightman had managed to arrange her appointment.
Out of habit, she felt a burning urge to uncover the secrets buried in these notes; again, she had to restrain her curiosity. Discovery would not do so early in her journey, when Pugh could lurch through the door at any moment. It would not do to confirm his suspicions.
Daguerreotypes and CDVs covered the wall. A young Pugh stood next to the famous Professor Aronnax of Nautilus fame in one. Another image showed a slightly older Pugh and a boy that resembled a younger version of the captain.
Others were not so pleasant. Photographs recorded the systematic dissection of viscera emerging from a mass of desiccated tentacles. Artificial tints highlighted the sparse internal organs. Zoological drawings reduced the world's nightmares to simple blotches of ink and watercolour.
Every other picture she had seen -- from the Invasion Chronicle to the annual memorial issue of The Daily Telegraph -- had been mocked-up horrors of enormous beaks dripping with imitation saliva and sprouting rubbery limbs. Some enterprising soul had even turned a tidy profit off CDVs of the Martians, sold in tobacco shops alongside penny dreadfuls and the TIA-published Adventures of Tommy the Terran & Sophie the Steamfitter. Here, the monsters appeared labeled and diagrammed as if they were merely worms; they made the previous illustrations seem ridiculous and exaggerated.
Gemma wrinkled her nose slightly at the faint stink of formaldehyde that permeated the room. Another underlying odour intertwined with it, one that she could not identify. Her time in laboratories had exposed her to many such unknowns. She had seen -- and smelt -- far worse in person when she had worked for the Roman vivisectionist in the year prior. She tried to imagine these particular images on the wall of Mrs. Brightman's second-best parlour alongside the ever-present vases of lilacs. A girlish giggle escaped her mouth.
"What do you find so amusing, Miss Llewellyn?"
She turned to see Pugh lurking in the doorway. He had a terrible habit of sneaking up on her. Very few men had been able to creep up behind her so easily in the past, except for perhaps that one fellow in Shanghai. Gemma had made certain that he was no longer a concern.
"You arrived here rather quickly for someone so unfamiliar with the ship," he growled.
He picked up a small metal charm from the desk, from somewhere beneath a piece of paper, and shoved it into his watch pocket. He wasn't fast enough to conceal it from Gemma. She knew a mourning locket when she saw one. Even this many years after the Invasion, they were as common as watches.
"Drat that Alfieri, anyway," he muttered. "He held me up longer than I thought. I certainly don't want you in my office alone again. Ever. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Dr. Pugh."
"So, let us be direct. I am very familiar with the business of your so-called College. Did Petunia send you here for me?"
"Mrs. Brightman made no mention of you, sir." That much was true, though she swallowed hard at the mention of her mistress' given name.
He cleared his throat before continuing. "You are here for something, though. However, since your being here is probably not your choice, I won't have you put out the nearest airlock. At least, not unless you give me a specific reason to."
Gemma had never been this close to someone naming her true role. Her heart pounded hard in her chest, and it felt like the blows of a blacksmith's hammer on hot steel. Her worst nightmare -- besides that of the Martians returning -- had always been Discovery. That business with the gentleman in Shanghai had been a horrible mess. Despite her skills, she had barely escaped with her life. And now she could not elude the consequences of using those skills. She needed other means of protection besides escape.
Pugh slumped into his chair and regarded her with weary eyes. "I'm sure that if you were here for me, you wouldn't tell me. In any case, I wouldn't still be here to ask the question. But perhaps you can tell me a few other things about yourself. How much notice were you given of this particular voyage?"
"Two days. Someone else was set to go, but they were removed at the last moment."
It then struck her how odd that was. She was accustomed to doing exactly as ordered, with little notice, and without question, and with her real name. It was indeed strange that one would undertake the most perilous journey known to humankind without at least a fortnight's preparation. She frowned. She had never had the leisure to consider the strangeness of it all.
"Two days," Dr. Pugh muttered. "Hrmph. Even in our rapidly moving modern age, even with all the means at your teacher's disposal, that is not much time at all to prepare for this sort of adventure. I will assume she pressed you into service, for whatever reason. Probably to watch me, as that is what Petunia does. Watch people. And steal science. Though this is a pretty long reach, even for the Belladonna of Guildford. Do you have any idea whom you replaced?"
She shook her head. Again, this was truth; Mrs. Brightman had simply told her that she was replacing another and that she was to watch the captain, with more specific orders to follow after her departure. For her own part, she had jumped at the chance to play at being a scientist rather than just a silly lab bunny; she knew by now that that was not going to be as enjoyable as she had first hoped.
"So, can you tell me how you know so much about tralphium? I know you didn't assist the foremost expert. Professor Rosencrantz is not known for his fondness for female aides."
No, Gemma thought, but his predilection for snogging can-can girls in his laboratory isn't exactly a secret, either. There was no need for Pugh to know that bit of news or how she gotten access to Rosencrantz's chalkboard, so she kept silent.
"So I know about you. What you are. And you know I know. And we're not even past the moon yet. But it would be hypocritical of me to send you packing, considering the means by which we are actually out here. How dishonest is it to pickpocket a thief? Can you tell me that?" When she didn't answer, he kept on. "You are stuck, and so am I. Whatever are we to do with each other, young lady?"
She didn't know how to respond. All the usual reactions to Discovery were null and void here; of course she was stuck. But how could he be stuck? She was sure that within minutes of becoming aware of the situation, Captain Moreau would have her gulping vacuum before she could say Terra vigila.
"Everyone on the ship has to be worth the recycled air they breathe," Dr. Pugh said. "If you are going to pretend to be a scientist, we might as well bring you up to speed. What is the difference between monticellite and kirschsteinite, my dear geologist?"
She cleared her throat. "Both are members of the olivine group. Monticellite has calcium and magnesium mixed in with its silicate. The other has calcium and iron. Olivine is thought to be the most abundant mineral on Earth."
"Such a textbook answer. Well, good that you know a bit about minerals. We also found olivine on the lunar surface, you know. Or, I think, you should know. That's one of the things you might want to look for on Mars, should you actually be allowed off the ship. And how are you in Mathematics? Convert 59 kilograms to newtons. For someone on Earth, that is, not Mars. Feel free to round up."
She studied the patterns in the whitewashed ceiling as she reckoned the numbers in her head. One of her previous targets had been very keen on that particular formula; it was seared into her brain-pan.
It was the life of a Brightman Girl to serve the school's clients, sometimes as laboratory assistants and sometimes as computers. Granted, the work was usually done in someone else's laboratory for said client. They accessed carefully hoarded (and sometimes classified) data for Brightman's customers, who were hidden in their own veil of secrecy from the Girls.
A well-trained team of computers -- almost always female, as they were cheaper than their male counterparts -- could tear data apart and crunch through a set of equations much faster than one person alone. That left the scientist -- almost always male, Sophie the Steamfitter not being well known in those circles -- free to observe and lecture. It also left them free to take credit for all the work. The Girls spent more time drilling their arithmetic than they did their etiquette. Philippa had been especially ade
pt at maths.
"Five hundred and seventy-nine."
"Very well. Can you calculate the mass of a planet using the period and orbital radius of one of its moons?"
She fell silent and pointedly examined at one of the zoological sketches on the wall. The tentacle on it seemed to wave at her.
"So, you do have some ability, but not much. What more could one expect from a computer? Not that I've personally had a basis for comparison." He cleared his throat. "You can calculate a figure, and quickly, if you know the formula. We shall have to build upon that. Prepare to drink deeply from the Fountain of Knowledge, young Gemma. You are about to go back to school, a much better one. You are in the company of some of the finest minds in history. By the time we reach Mars, you shall be worthy of that company. Even if it kills you." He rifled through a stack of papers and retrieved a copy of Lyell's book. "If they don't get the heat ray up and running by then, it may just."
"I have that one already." She nearly bit her lip for letting that slip. The book was too important to her work to let someone take it away.
"Really? Perhaps Petunia was thinking ahead. So, do you subscribe to Uniformitarianism, or are you more of a Catastrophist?"
She blinked for a moment. "One should not mix ammonia with chlorine," she replied with a coquettish smile.
"Very well. Something simpler. Is the crust of Mars thought to be basaltic or granitic?"
"I can name the Kings of England," she replied. She pursed her lips. It was no use pretending, now.