by K. T. Hunter
Dr. Hansard appeared at the foot of the bed with an orderly, who was bearing a tray laden with fresh bandages and a syringe.
"Begging your pardon, Captain," he said. "Time for his next treatment. We need a little space."
"Of course. Please keep me informed." Christophe unfolded himself from the chair and tucked the sheaf of papers beneath his arm. He leaned down and whispered to Cervantes, "And Maggie sends her love, as always."
~~~~
Gemma
Over the next week, Gemma saw very little of Dr. Pugh. The morning after her late conversation with Christophe, she had slept right through the morning duty alarm. She had skipped breakfast and made straight for Pugh's office, only to find the door locked.
"In a meeting, Llewellyn," he had called through the door. "I'm afraid we'll be in here for some time. You'll find your notes in your laboratory workspace. I'll call should I need you."
When she had tried to ask a question, the only answer she received was a dismissive "Good day!"
She received the same "Good day!" for the next few mornings, until she decided to wait for his call, after all.
Every night, visions of Aronnax's giant squid haunted her little patches of sleep. One night, after discovering the armoire door had been left unlatched in another of Frau Knopf's mystery inspections, she had dreamed that it danced round her room and poked its tentacles into Old Dependable. Another night it rifled through her volume of Lyell. She blamed it on the captain's tattoo.
The early morning solar flare drill a few days later did not help, either. At least this time she was in Ladies' Country, and she only had to share the space with Caroline. Frau Knopf and her assistants were already on breakfast duty in the galleys. Gemma took advantage of the quiet moment to inquire about the Lister's Towels in the storage cabinet.
"Aw, them's just for redundancy," Caroline explained. "This is what you want." She bent down and retrieved one of the smaller boxes on a low shelf. Handing it to Gemma, she said, "This is brand new! Well, the idea's been around for a while, but Frau Knopf redesigned it so it really works. I think she's applied for a patent, actually."
"What is it?"
"A cup. Takes care of your ladies' days needs with less than half the trouble of those Lister things. Reusable, even. It'll work for years if you treat it right, but we brought four for each of us girls, just in case. Less to bring, nothing to throw away. You know, it's another reason why they didn't want us on the ship. I reckon the Quartermaster thought we'd have a cargo bay full of them towels!" She snorted. "But Frau Knopf wasn't having none of that. She said it was downright silly to let something natural get in the way of us going to space." She pointed to the box. "There's a tract inside that tells you all about it."
"Impressive," Gemma said as she scanned the discreet label on the side of the box. "Perhaps we'll see them at Selfridge's someday, and Frau Knopf will join the ranks of the wealthy."
"Under the counter, most like, but yeah. But now they'll have to think of some other excuse to keep us Earthbound."
Pritchard's voice crackled over the speaking tube to check in on them, and the blue alert light above the latched door faded.
"C'mon," said Caroline, "let's take this box to your cabin and go have some chips and eggs. We have a little time before my shift begins."
Breakfast with the Booleans, and Mr. Pritchard more often than not, was a welcome respite, although the daily Wireless News did little for her appetite. The steel worker strikes continued back on Earth, and the Socialists were calling for a general strike. The Kaiser had renewed his annual demands for access to the TIA's Martian research, this time with the backing of the Tsar. Chips and eggs were served with a side of tension as the crew debated the news, although the French and German sailors had made a pact to leave the matter of Alsace and Lorraine up to their respective governments, for now.
That Saturday came and went, and the Knitting Circle of Doom was cancelled by Frau Knopf, as she was assisting in the care of Cervantes.
During the day, having no other work to do, she reviewed the journals Pugh had given her. She finished Aronnax's in due course, and she felt a delicious frisson of sympathetic terror as he described the frightful last moments of the Nautilus in the famous maelstrom near the coast of Norway. It was even more thrilling to read it in the original author's spidery handwriting. 1868 had not been a good year for old Nemo.
For as little as she saw Dr. Pugh, she saw Christophe enough to make up the difference. He was always late for tea, as he spent much of his off-duty time at his first mate's bedside; but when he did arrive, he sought her out. One day, he handed her his copy of Following the Equator. He had read the rest of it to the sleeping Cervantes and decided that she could use some light reading.
Every day, once tea was over, Christophe would find some excuse to walk in whatever direction she happened to go, which was usually the Gardens. He kept trying to take a turn with her along those winding paths, to point out the patches of growing beans and chives. She allowed it, as it was part of her mission. In fact, Brightman's messages demanded more and more detail about the man, his attributes, and his habits. However, there was nothing more exciting to report than that he had a keen fascination with Mark Twain, hairy green fruit, his sailing vessel, and his injured first mate. There was nothing worth the electricity it would take to transmit it back, yet she encoded it anyway.
Moreau never mentioned the name that lurked upon his arm, and she dropped that particular detail from her reports. She did not know if the captain had a woman, and she did not care, except for the fact that Maggie might tie in to whatever Orion was. Gemma was a computer at heart, and she needed data to do her work. She only had tiny pieces, and not nearly enough to churn out any sort of solution. Leads were few, but she had time. She waited. She would report the name when she had something to report.
More often than not, their promenade did not get as far as the central gazebo before someone came to fetch him, usually in Dr. Pugh's name. She would finish her stroll alone along paths lined with angelica, savory, and lemon verbena. She knew of a botanist or two that would have sold their mother's eyeteeth to trade places with Herr Knopf. He waddled through every so often, loaded down with baskets of orange and lemon peels from the galleys. Their entire conversation consisted of nods and grunts as he passed by before disappearing behind a triple-locked door on the side of the Gardens, tucked away behind blackberry briars.
One day she came upon Caroline, looking forlorn amongst the cabbages. She gripped a notebook -- similar to one of Pugh's except considerably more rumpled -- to her chest and greeted Gemma with a glum expression.
"It was here. I know it!" Caroline said.
"What was here?"
Caroline stepped over some crushed cabbage heads and stopped next to Gemma. The Boolean leaned in close and whispered, "The ghost."
"Pardon?"
"Oh, haven't you heard? The Fury is haunted."
"You don't say," replied Gemma. She swallowed the laugh that threatened to burst forth and nearly hiccoughed from the strain. "Is that what the notebook is for?"
"Yes! Ask anybody. We've heard it creepin' through the halls at night. Sometimes I can hear people walking in the corridors, sometimes right next to me, but there ain't nothing there!" She shoved the book into Gemma's hands. "This is for the Psychical Society. I told them about the ghosts, when we were ramping up for this mission, and they asked me to take notes for 'em. They might let me publish a paper. I might even get a photograph or two, if I can use the Cohort's camera."
Gemma paged through the handwritten notes and scanned a few, more out of politeness than actual curiosity. "Camera?" she asked.
"They've got one for the telescope. It can take normal pictures, too. It doesn't need flash powder, so maybe it won't scare the ghost."
The wreck of the heat ray flared across Gemma's mind. Pugh had asked about a camera. She wondered if they had found any flash powder in the debris, or if he had remembered this little fact abou
t the Cohort's own camera. At this rate, Caroline knew more about Gemma's department than she did.
"Whose ghost, do you think?" Gemma asked, hoping for more unexpected news.
"Some of the others thinks it's the ones what died on the lunar voyage."
"You don't agree?"
"No, no. And here's why. I heard it on the trip out, before the flare. Whatever it is, it's been in the ship since she launched the first time."
"Don't you mean, on the ship?"
"Nah. In."
"And you aren't afraid of it?"
"Not as much as I am of the Martians." As she took the book back from Gemma, she added, "Oh, don't be afraid, love. It just walks round the ship. This ghost ain't hurt nothin' nor nobody, except for smashing some vegetation in the Gardens from time to time." She jerked her thumb in the direction of the ruined cabbages.
"You sure it's not just the goats from the stable deck?"
"I checked. They've not been up here since day before yesterday. And the cabbages were fine when I took my walk yesterday."
"Ever thought of going into real science? You have a keen eye for observation."
"It is real science!" she protested. Then her face fell. "It's also the only thing I could get. Being a girl and all."
Gemma nodded, as it was a tale she had heard before, another stanza of Brightman's song. She took Caroline's elbow and steered the despondent Boolean along the path towards the more relaxing air near the chamomile patch.
"Is Informatics considered a science?" Gemma asked.
"More like a trade, the way we do it. I want to do research. Find stuff out. Like you do."
"Well, then, I would be interested in reading your paper when you're finished."
It wasn't just tea and walks with Christophe. In fact, sometimes Gemma wondered if there was more than one of him, he turned up so often. He had visited the laboratory a few times while she was reading the Aronnax journal. Most officers visiting the lab finished their business quickly, but Christophe poked, prodded, and sniffed everything that the scientists would let him, along with a few things that made them squawk. He keypunched cards with restless energy, fiddled with the pneumatics settings, and flipped through every book he could get his hands on. He checked in with Hui, who was surrounded by a mountain of wireless messages and the guts of some sort of cannon. He discussed the G-bombs with Stanislav and Shaw. He even got a word or two in with the taciturn Berndsen, who rarely looked up from his microscope.
As a computer, Gemma had spent many hours churning out numbers in cramped warrens stuffed behind laboratories. In the past, she had transmitted the formulas and the steps for calculating them, the computing plans, back to the College, using whatever means might be at hand, even carrier pigeon once upon a time. Most of the time it was tedious, dull work; on one mission she had computed cube roots until spots danced before her eyes, but at least it had been useful. She felt useless now, just reading, though Pugh had tried to convince her that reading was a significant part of scientific research.
This far in, she could tell that her "pet project" had nothing to do with the elusive Orion. Now she had little hope of reading the one document she had seen in Dr. Pugh's office, though she had wired back an encrypted message indicating she had seen the name there. She even included a helpful tidbit about Frau Knopf's miraculous invention, which she had the opportunity to use in the meanwhile; it would make field work far more comfortable for the other Girls. She hoped that those breadcrumbs of news would buy her a little time. She cursed herself for not taking a closer look while she had had the chance.
The more she searched, the more she was convinced that Orion had nothing to do with the ship itself. The research that Brightman had collected over the past few years indicated that the Terran governments were interested in weapons they could use on Earth. Caroline had been in earnest when she had asked Gemma about the Black Smoke research. Philippa had been involved in the propagation calculations for that very study at the ACS. Her results, furtively whispered in the darkness of their room, had made Gemma's skin crawl.
Perhaps Orion had something to do with the heat ray? Though goodness knew there were plenty of ways to capture that data on Earth, if one knew where to look. Anna, another Brightman Girl whose skills lay in directions other than mathematics, had been embedded as a French minister's mistress for several years. She had provided enough intelligence on that nation's heat ray designs that Brightman could build one of her own, if she so desired. By the same token, the Cohort's pestilential G-bombs were hardly a secret. Their mechanisms were fairly conventional, and the diseases they carried were not exactly exotic.
Gemma reported back any breadcrumb that she could find, from details of the Oberths to the workings of the A.E. to the idiosyncrasies of the Cohort members (Bidarhalli would only use blue grease pencils, the linguist loathed strawberry jam), in case any of it led Brightman to clarify her orders. In return, she merely received instructions to spend more time with the captain.
Moreau made that part frustratingly easy. The captain's antics were the only thing distracting her from the tedium of reading and the anxiety of searching for the ill-defined Orion. He was like a very tall, very determined cat that demanded attention whenever she started working.
After her talk with Caroline, Gemma decided to visit Alfieri and his telescope (and his telescope's camera). He greeted her warmly and spent the afternoon showing her the massive device and the points of light in its viewing field.
"How is it that you are such an expert on solar flares?" she asked.
"Oh, I had the good fortune of attending some of the lectures of the British Astronomical Association. Met one of the founders there, one Elizabeth Brown. Quite the solar observer!"
"I thought women weren't in the societies." It had been a particular sore point with Mrs. Brightman.
"Well, there aren't any in the actual Royal Society, unfortunately. Quite a loss! I picked up most of my solar lore from her. She made sure ladies were part of the BAA from the beginning." He pointed the telescope to another area of the sky and motioned for her to look into the eyepiece. "There are other routes to science besides the Royal Society, if one knows where to look. And, I hope, as we progress, even that will change. Wisdom is where you find it."
She could almost hear the stars whispering to her as she peered into the eyepiece, reminding her of what had brought her to the observatory.
"Can you photograph what you see?" she asked.
"Certainly. We have a camera that mounts upon the eyepiece. I expect we'll be taking quite a few as we get closer to Mars."
"Is it easy to use?"
"Oh, anyone could use it after a few minutes' worth of instruction. I could show you how, if you like."
A few minutes later, after very little effort, said camera was mounted on the telescope. The mechanism was simple to use, and the camera was lighter than she had expected.
"Is it very portable?"
"It's designed to be. We can use it to record a variety of scientific phenomena, not just with the telescope. It's available to anyone who wishes to use it. I think your friend Yeoman McLure has even put in a request for it."
"So not just the Cohort?"
"Various departments have used it since we left. Herr Knopf borrows it from time to time to record plant growth in the Gardens. Wallace likes photos of the crew in action. That sort of thing. We have plenty of film, and the development lab is just over there." He pointed to a door on the far side of the observatory. "Just don't open the door when the Occupied sign is up."
"Of course," she replied, keeping her buzzing thoughts to herself. Should she remind Dr. Pugh of this, for his investigation? "Don't want to let the light in."
"Funny thing, light. Remember as you observe, we see the light of the past," Alfieri said.
"The past?"
"Yes. It takes light time to get to us. Even at the incredible speed it travels, it takes time to move across space. For example, if you look at Mars from Earth, you
see the Mars of several minutes ago, not the Mars of that very instant. We see Mars in the past, even if just the very recent past."
"If we went far enough away from Earth -- and had a powerful enough telescope -- could we watch the Invasion happen? Or see the world before the Invasion?" she asked. But her real question, a question she never would have dared ask in earshot of Mrs. Brightman, a question she would not have dared think of before this voyage, was "Could I see my parents?"
"Yes," he replied with a sage nod, seeming to hear even the unspoken question. "We couldn't affect that past, but we could witness it. And it might affect us."
"Affect us? How?"
"Only in a reactionary sense. What if we witnessed events that heretofore we had only heard about? What if we saw a completely different version than the tale we had been told? The way we react to the past often influences our present. And our future."
"As we get closer to Mars," Gemma said, "I suppose we have less and less time between the present we bring with us and the past that we see. What happens when the two collide?"
"I suppose we'll find out together, my child."
Days blurred together. Breakfast presented her with the trading of CDVs and updates on Nigel's impending fatherhood. Then it was reading and still more reading, with no Dr. Pugh and no news of his investigation, even after she had left him a note about the camera beneath his door.
Humboldt managed to find her every day as she walked from the mess hall to the laboratory to report that he had still not found the original version of her message. He searched at every spare moment, even though his "extra duties" had ended two days after Gemma had had a word with Nigel.
In the meantime, she cringed every time Rathbone handed her a new message. She was amazed at how many ways one could say "get on with it". It no longer amazed her that Brightman had not sent any gear along. Of course she hadn't. It was an excuse for Pugh to find her something else to do.