by K. T. Hunter
"Pretty sure I saw this little lovely down at the Cirque du Lune, or one that was her very image. I hear tell she's supposed to teach you how to be a lady."
His hand crawled up Gemma's arm, a five-limbed spider making its way toward her shoulder. The heat from his hand was burning her… the Man from Shanghai was reaching for her again…
"Maybe she can teach you to--"
Quick as a thunderbolt, Humboldt was on his back, and Gemma's heel was at his throat. The instinctive reaction pulsed through her before she was aware of it. The move was swift, as Madame Liu had taught them, one fluid motion that any witness would be hard-pressed to describe, except for the finish. One arm was trapped beneath the man, and the other was twisted and ensnared in her much smaller hand. He didn't breathe. He didn't even twitch beneath her patent-leather-shod foot. He just stared at her, with the same look of terror in his eyes as the Man from Shanghai. That was who she saw, not the quivering Humboldt, in a haze of red.
It was only the lack of brass on her heel -- this time -- that had prevented a replay of that bloody coup de grace. As it was, all she had to do was apply a little pressure with her foot--
And then she heard the silence. Suddenly she was no longer in some grimy back alley in China. Mr. Rathbone's fiddle screeched to a halt. The endless speculation about ruby-encrusted El Dorados and Cibolas died instantly. CDVs froze in the air, mid-trade. Teacups paused between saucer and lips. The only sound besides Humboldt's eventual squeal for mercy was the eternal turning of the gears below their feet and the revolving of the model planets, which ignored everything. As shocked as they all were, the globes kept on turning.
Gemma quaked with a rage that she had not felt in years. Caroline pulled at her gently and urged her to release the man. That gave Gemma the bolster that she needed in the face of Discovery. Ladies didn't ram their offenders into the floor; at worst they gave them a good sharp slap with a dose of righteous indignation, Sophie the Steamfitter notwithstanding. Certainly geologists were not known to be a violent lot. Convinced her mask had been ripped away, she slowly removed her foot from his throat.
She had just done more damage to herself than Humboldt ever could, with all his drunken rambling. Her face went numb, and she released the breath that she hadn't known that she was holding. It was entirely possible that she would be popping out of an airlock any moment now. Pugh wouldn't have to report her Peculiar Occupation to the captain now, not when half the crew had witnessed her act of savagery.
She dusted her hands and straightened her drab laboratory blouse as if it were a royal robe in her most severe we-are-not-amused posture.
"And that, my dear Caroline," she said with the same coolness one would use to explain the number of pence to a shilling, "is how one deals with obnoxious party guests, according to Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. Tomorrow's lesson will be in self-defence with hatpins. Tea?"
Gemma marched over to the food-laden table by the door. Her posture dared the rest of them to utter a word. She could feel the faces of everyone -- including Mr. Humboldt -- gaping at her back in stunned disbelief.
"I didn't mean no harm, love," Humboldt managed to squeak in a hoarse voice.
He sounded surprised that he could speak at all. She studiously kept her back to him as she picked up a gold-trimmed plate and plunked petit fours onto it with enough force to shatter their icing. She held out another plate from the stack to Caroline, who had not left her side, with a shaking hand.
Everyone stared at her.
Everyone, that is, except Dr. Pugh, who had stationed himself beside a mound of scones at the end of the table. He merely muttered into his tea something about the lad deserving a horse-whipping.
There was a sudden cry of "Huzzah!" from the men in the room, and the sailors clapped each other on the shoulder. The tense cord of anxiety had been cut, somehow. As their cheers of joy faded once more into background murmurs, Captain Moreau burst through the door, slightly short of breath, as if he had been running all the way from the bridge.
There was a quick cry of "Captain on deck!", and all the crewmembers snapped to attention.
"As you were," the captain managed to huff out. He joined Pugh by the table and said quietly, "Awfully sorry to be late. What did I miss?"
Gemma froze as the rest of the crew relaxed. She braced herself for the report, the deep-etched frown on the fresh face of the captain, the wailing of the tender-hearted Caroline, the sudden grasping of her arms, the quick-step march down the corridor to the nearest airlock. They would completely skip clapping her in irons to await her fate. Resistance would be undignified and worse than useless. And worse, she had failed her mistress, absolutely failed, due to her own lack of control. She hadn't even made it past the moon. There was nowhere to go. She wondered if landing in vacuum would hurt.
All the crewmembers turned their heads in different directions, looking anywhere except at the captain. Some of them whistled. Others studied their CDVs as if they contained the secrets of the universe, and still others examined the constellations on the ceiling. Pugh stuffed an entire Bosworth jumble into his mouth. Caroline stirred a fifth sugar cube into her tea and swore to Gemma that she never knew that being a lady could be so exciting. Mr. Humboldt, with his ascot tied to hide the darkening bruise on his neck, was utterly silent.
"Oh, nothing really, Captain," Pugh replied around a mouthful of pastry. He pointed to the tiny model of the Fury. It had just crossed the invisible border that they had all been anticipating for days. "Just a minor glitch, is all."
~~~~
Christophe
"Ah, I thought I would find you here," Christophe said, "especially since your usual thoughtful spot had been invaded."
Miguel looked up from the table with a smile. "I had all the party I could stand on launch day." He gestured at the coils and glass balls lined up before him in smart rows. "Thought the Leyden pistols could use some attention. And the armoury was quiet, for once."
"And I had all I could stand on the lunar voyage. But overall, it was a quieter affair then I'd expected. Like some company?" Christophe pulled up a stool opposite Cervantes and snatched a coil and an empty frame. "I am glad they found a way to reduce the voltage on these. But I wonder what old Nemo would say if he knew we had turned the power down on his design?"
Cervantes chuckled. "Who knows what he would have to say about anything? He used his electric rifles to hunt food, not Martians. His men were so loyal, he'd never dream of having to use it against one of them."
"I wouldn't dream of using it against our own, either. One of the benefits of an all-volunteer force." He picked some marble-sized balls out of a container on the side of the table and rolled them around in his hand. "Still, I wouldn't want to be on the business end of one of these again, even on the non-lethal setting. Once in training was more than enough. Quite the nasty shock."
"I have a distinct appreciation for the Leyden Effect, as well," Cervantes replied with a shiver, "but who knows what will happen out here, Christophe? We have to be ready for anything. At least it is our technology, even if Nemo didn't mean it to be used this way. That ought to make Elias happy, along with what the bombs are carrying. The payload is definitely of human manufacture."
Christophe did not reply. He simply picked up the next piece and snapped it into place. Cervantes loaded three of the steel balls into his pistol, set the safety, and slid it into its charging canister.
As he returned it to the nest of other pistols on the rack, Cervantes said, "The orders still trouble you, yes?"
"There were more protestors in Wellington before we left. They weren't striking for workers' rights or suffrage this time. They rejected the notion of … what was it that one sign said? 'Unlimited warfare'? Miguel, what if Alfieri is right? What if the Martians sue for peace? What do we do?"
"The middies got you thinking, didn't they? Christophe, we have never spoken with them. How would we even know if they asked for parley?"
"Exactly, old sport
. Well, Maggie might."
"We're not sure if even Maggie can understand them. Or our linguist in the Cohort. Our orders are fairly simple: eliminate the Martian threat by any means necessary and return with any war prizes. 'Any means necessary' could mean anything from the G-bombs to a strongly worded letter to their mothers, if we knew where to send it. There may be a loophole, though." He cleared his throat. "If they do manage to communicate with us clearly enough before we make orbit, and they have something to offer, I'm sure the TIA would be willing to deal. An advantage of being a private navy."
"And if they can't communicate?"
"We follow our orders. And pray."
~~~~
Gemma
At breakfast the next day, the mess hall had a different air about it. There were no wolf-whistles as Gemma stood in line to receive her bacon. There were no cat-calls as she made her way back to the table that she shared with Nigel and Caroline. There were a few respectful nods here and there from the sailors as she passed them, but they allowed her to walk by in peace. When she arrived at the table, she found Mr. Pritchard there as well. The navigator was in deep conversation with the two Booleans, and she heard intense negotiations taking place as she approached.
"I've got a Poe, a Queen Victoria, a Professor Aronnax, and a really nice one of Louis Daguerre himself," Pritchard said in a voice that rolled across the room like a lazy summer thunder. "I'll trade all of these for that Viscount Nelson."
Nigel stroked his chin in deep thought as he considered the offer, but he stood when he saw Gemma. Caroline followed suit with a smile, and Mr. Pritchard stood as well. A mountain of a man, he would have towered over the captain.
"Ma'am," he said with a nod. "Pleasure to see you this fine mornin'. Lieutenant Commander Hieronymus Pritchard, navigator. And you must be our Miss Llewellyn." As they all sat down, he slid his stack of CDVs closer to him to clear a space for her tray. "Let me make some room for you here. We're just doing a little tradin'."
She returned his greeting with more of a tremor in her voice than she liked. She had been shaky since she had left the orrery the day before, slipping out as soon as she could escape Dr. Pugh's notice. Violence should always be the last resort. It frightened her when she lost control like that.
She nibbled at a piece of the crisp, salty bacon and scanned the notices on the wall as the other three continued trading. Caroline was keen on a picture of a stage actress, and Mr. Pritchard wanted one of her Dickens cards in return.
The number of notices on the wall had grown over the last few days. Above the usual Sophie the Steamfitter propaganda was a long banner declaring the number of days left until Braking Day, which would mark the halfway point in their voyage. The newspaper had been replaced with a typewritten sheet entitled 'Wireless News'. According to its headline, France and Germany were bickering over the Alsace and Lorraine provinces again. There were more calls for labour strikes among the employees of the major steel manufacturers, which also happened to be major stakeholders in the TIA.
"Do you like the bacon, Miss Llewellyn?" Mr. Pritchard asked.
The sudden question gave her a start. She replied, "Well, yes. It's quite tasty, in fact. How big a supply did we bring with us? Enough for the whole journey?"
"Well," he said, a bit of shy pride creeping into his smooth voice, "it comes from my hometown. I was raised by Shakers down in Kentucky. What you have there is the best that Pleasant Hill hogs have to offer."
"Shakers?" she asked.
"What you might call a religious community. The members don't marry, but they do take in orphans and raise them 'til they're old enough to decide to join or leave. There were plenty of us to take in after the Invasion, let me tell you, so they were plenty busy. I left -- I wanted to get married someday -- but I still keep in touch with them. They're my family. They gave me a great education. They had one of the best schools in what was left of the country after the Martians got through with us."
"Were all the schools destroyed?" Caroline asked.
"No, we just lost a lot of people, teachers included. My guardians did a fair job with the three R's. Carpentry, too," he said as he flexed his muscular hands. "They're famous for their chairs, you know, and there was a lot of rebuilding to do. Their teaching was good enough to get me into the Academy and onto the Fury. Some of the Shakers came down to see me off and gave me plenty of good food for the journey, too. They are pacifists, you know, so they aren't exactly screaming Terra vigila right now. Sort of a blessing for me, I s'pose. I miss 'em."
His description reminded her a little bit of her own school. Mrs. Brightman, too, had taken in many orphans, but never had anyone asked to leave. Of course, she didn't recall anyone asking her if she wanted to. It had never occurred to her to do so. The thought stuck in her mind like a thorn.
"We brought lots of it," Pritchard continued in a jovial tone, "but it prob'ly won't last the entire journey. Not with hungry scientists on board." He motioned at Gemma's rapidly emptying plate with his chin.
"We do have some live meat on the stable deck, Ron," Nigel said. "But it won't be table-ready for a while. Until then, most of the swine act as disposal units for the galley scraps. They have a special dumbwaiter that takes buckets straight from the galleys down to the stable deck. A conveyer belt takes it the rest of the way, so the, um, fresh country air, as they say, doesn't seep back into the galleys. Whatever the pigs -- er -- produce from that goes to fertilize the Gardens. Frau Knopf frowns on waste of any sort, and we need to keep her happy."
Pritchard guffawed. "Oh, ain't that the truth. She got angry with this one fella, last trip out, when he complained that the bacon wasn't done to his liking. She burnt his bacon -- only his bacon, mind you -- for the rest of the trip." He said to Gemma in an exaggerated whisper, "You like your bacon. I'd stay on her good side, if I were you."
Caroline, who had been studying one of Pritchard's cards, looked up and asked, "Gemma, do you have any cards to trade? Don't want to leave you out, love."
Gemma shook her head. "Oh, no, Caroline," she replied. "My studies leave little time for much collecting. Except for rocks, of course."
Caroline laughed until she snorted. "Well, 'bout time you started, right? Most of us have 'em. Gives us something to do. Here," she said, "start with one o'mine. A hero for my hero. You did defend my honour last night, after all." She handed Gemma a card emblazoned with the sultry smirk of Sophie the Steamfitter. "I've got three of this one."
Mr. Pritchard slid one of his cards over to her. "A Robert Frost, for the pretty lady," he said. "Since you brought us good luck."
Nigel grinned at her. "How chivalrous of you, Ron! Well, I can't be left out! Would you like a Viscount Nelson, Miss Gemma?"
"Hey, that one's mine!" Pritchard chuckled. "Give her your God Speed. Everybody needs one of the captain."
Nigel drew a card from the deck in front of him and held it up. Caroline gasped at the sight of it. It was a reproduction of Edmund Leighton's painting God Speed, which had become very popular over the past few years: a medieval lady, leaning across a stone railing, tied a red kerchief token onto an armoured knight's arm, with said knight on horseback, ready to ride to war. Only this time, it was Sophie the Steamfitter on the railing, corset and short skirt in place with a bit of cheek peeping out, with Moreau's helmeted visage gazing up at her with gross affection. Gemma groaned inwardly at the tackiness of it, thankful that it was just a painting. She wasn't sure she could stomach a real-life image of such tripe.
Caroline, on the other hand, bounced in her chair. "I can't believe it! You have one, you actually have one," she squealed. "Oh, Nigel, please--"
"Now, now, Yeoman," he said gently as he offered the card to Gemma with a flourish. "I suggest you set up a trade with Miss Llewellyn here, if you want it." He leaned towards Gemma and said, "Look sharp with this one. She's a crafty trader. My wife trained her well."
"Gettin' mighty thick in here," Pritchard chuckled, waving his hand in front of him as if chasing an
unpleasant odour away. "I think I'll take my leave. I need to head on up to the bridge, anyway. Heat ray tests later today, you know. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Llewellyn. Chief, ladies, I bid you good day." He gathered his cards and walked away.
Caroline showed Gemma the rest of her deck, which she seemed ready to trade in its entirety for that one tawdry card. Another one appeared at Gemma's elbow. She turned to look at the giver and saw only the retreating back of a hunter green jacket. The dog-eared card bore a blueprint of the Fury.
Once Pritchard was out of earshot, Nigel leaned a little closer to Gemma and said in a low voice, "Don't worry about Humboldt. As his boss, I have to do something about his behaviour of yesterday. I won't put him in the brig, as much as he deserves it, since I'd have to log his actual offense with the captain--"
"--and that would be bad luck," said Caroline.
Gemma gave the pair an odd look.
"Well," Nigel said, "let's just say that we don't examine a good omen's teeth too closely 'round here. And I think you gave him a good dose of humiliation to boot, so for the most part I think he's been put in his place."
"Roger ain't a bad chap, Gemma, not really," said Caroline, "not until he gets into his cups. Which he does a lot, so he can forget what his family did to him."
"Caroline!" Nigel snapped.
"Family?"
"She ought to know, Nigel. He ain't no Orphan, not like us. His family's rich. Old money. They got estates up in Kent, I think. Roger's always been a bit wild, I reckon, and one day they just got shot of him. Paid him to stay out of England. And he did, for a long time, 'til the Academy went looking for Boolean candidates for the mission. TIA didn't care about family backgrounds, long as we were good in maths. He signed on, but then his family cut him off entirely. A bit strange, really, since you can't get farther away than Mars."