by K. T. Hunter
"You got better!" he retorted. "Well, we did cut it close. I wanted Elias to know something for certain before we all snuffed it."
"You wanted to make sure you hadn't tried to kiss your sister, you mean," Gemma growled again, but this time it emerged through a playful curl in her lips.
"That, too."
"Kiss?" asked Pugh.
"But why me? Why did you gamble on it being me? There are many other Girls--"
"I had eliminated all but two from the list, either because they were the wrong age or because their Codes did not match. I hired a Mr. Chapman to collect Code -- however he could -- from the ones I thought might be a match. He managed to narrow it down to two. One, by all reports, was deceased already, with the location of her grave unknown. There was nothing available to test." Images of her friend, once Philippa, now Jennie, flitted across her mind as he then said, "The other was you, my dear."
She knew the rest of this tale. Could she bear to hear it fall from his lips? Could she -- should she -- tell him her truth?
"The last time I saw him, he was departing for Shanghai, to search you out. But someone killed him before he reported back. Getting access to you after that was well nigh impossible. But when I discovered that Brightman was trying to plant one of her people on the Fury, I saw my chance. And I took it."
"His name was Chapman," Gemma replied in a quiet voice.
The ghost that had haunted her for years had a name. Would he leave her in peace now, if she confessed? Even if that peace was short-lived?
She heard Christophe's sharp intake of breath. He knew. She had told him before that she was a monster, and now he had put the pieces together. Even though he now regarded her with sadness and pity in his eyes, there was no way he could tell her she was anything else now.
Maggie rolled over to her and wrapped a couple of tentacles around her in a gentle embrace. Gemma felt a coolness on her face; she touched her cheek and stared at the tears dancing on the tips of her fingers.
There was no thunder here, no rain outside a gray window to weep for her. The storm had broken loose inside of her at last.
"Did you see him, child?"
"I thought he was there to kill me," she said with a crack in her voice.
With every heartbeat, she could feel the promise of the stars slipping away with her confession. She could not look at him, at that kindly face. She stared at the wall instead. It was covered with images of a younger Pugh with his mentor, a man she now knew to be her father, a man known to her only through her reading of his journals. She tore herself away from that kindly stranger's gaze as well. Surely Pugh would loathe her after this, no matter who her father had been. Any hope that she had had of making a true life for herself out here was slipping like sand through her fingers.
"It was in a dark alley. I thought I was alone until he came upon me. He got too close. I reacted. It was instinct. He was dead before he could speak. If I had known--"
"Oh, my dear child," Dr. Pugh sobbed. "I warned Chapman to be careful. I warned him how Petunia had brutalized her pupils. I warned him not to approach you so directly. Hair strands stolen from a brush would have done. But he was stubborn. I should have guessed."
He passed a shaking hand across his eyes; she was not the only one weeping. "Oh, Gemma. My darling little Gemma. That I sent him, that I pushed you into such a corner. That you endured that burden alone! I should have gone myself, instead of sending a stranger. Oh, can you ever forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" she stammered. This was more surreal than meeting Maggie. "How could you forgive me?"
"It was self-defence," Christophe broke in. He tried to reach for her, and then something in him forced him to withdraw and sit back down. "How were you to know any differently, with a strange man coming upon you, in the dark, alone and so far from home?" He turned to Dr. Pugh, and a sense of relief flooded his voice. "Elias, you would have been as much a stranger to her as Chapman."
"But I would have been more careful with her," Pugh said. "I would not have ambushed someone who was trained to--"
A knock at the door made them all jump. At Pugh's word, it opened to reveal the weary visage of Ron Pritchard.
"Pardon the intrusion, Cap'n, ladies," he said as he flashed a wide smile at Maggie. "Dr. Pugh. Thought I'd check in with you."
"Of course, Mr. Pritchard," Christophe replied as he got to his feet. "What's our status?"
"Power's back up in all sections and has been stable for a few hours now. Engines don't look any worse for wear and should be fine when we restart 'em. Dr. Bidarhalli is crankin' through the calculations to see when we should fire 'em up. Because we're a little off our acceleration schedule, we'll have to adjust Braking Day. He figures we should just cruise along as we are for a while and then just fire 'em up for braking to begin, instead of speedin' up to just slow down again. We're behind, but not by too much."
"And has everyone reported in about how the power outage affected their systems? How about our provisions?"
"Oh, I think Frau Knopf has that well in hand, sir. Herr Knopf reported that there's some frost damage in the Gardens, not to mention the mess created when the artificial gravity gave out. Thankfully, a lot of stuff in there is pretty well nailed down, but not everything. He sure was cussin'. Stable deck is a disaster, though. There'll be no shortage of cleanup details 'round here, I'm thinking."
Christophe chuckled. "Well, I know exactly who to assign to that. I'm sure Rathbone and Wallace would love to get out of their cells for a while. Under guard, of course." He stroked one of Maggie's outstretched limbs. "What is the crew saying about their new member?"
"Well, sir, I've not heard anything out of line, but I do have to say that they all know better than to disrespect Miss Maggie 'round Hieronymus Pritchard. She saved the ship, and that's good enough for me. Though I do admit to some curiosity as to how she got onto the roster."
Christophe rubbed his knees. "I'm sure you are not the only curious one. Perhaps I should address the crew, now that things are calming down a bit. We have several matters to attend to." He stood and straightened his jacket, a futile operation considering how rumpled and soiled it was. "You have my gratitude, Mr. Pritchard. Your steadiness, perseverance, and good sense saved us. And you deserve some sleep, for heaven's sake! Your next post is your pillow, my good fellow!"
"Yes, sir," he said with a deep thunderous laugh. "But I think Frau Knopf has a plate of bacon with my name on it, first."
"Far be it from me to stand between a man and his bacon," Christophe chuckled.
As the door closed behind the departing first mate, Pugh tugged at his blanket. "I would suggest addressing the crew sooner rather than later, son. I am sure that Maggie's sudden appearance was quite a nasty shock for some of them."
"They frightened the dickens out of me," Maggie said. "I am not very fond of crowds."
The captain rubbed his chin again, grimacing as he re-discovered the rough scrub lurking there. "Well, without a bath and a shave, I don't believe the crowd will fancy me, either. Let's get everyone fed and down for a nap before we read them in. Perhaps 'twill be easier to take on a full stomach."
"Especially if Frau Knopf has anything to say about it," replied Gemma. The interruption had given her some time to pull herself together. She felt shaken, still, but she could breathe again. Maggie steadied her as she rose from her seat. "My ribs remind me that I could use some rest as well." She bowed her head at the scientist. "Good night, Dr. Pugh."
He took her hand in his and kissed it lightly. "Elias, please, my dear Gemma Aronnax."
"I will stay with him," Maggie said. "Rest well, my children."
Christophe followed Gemma across the room and out of the cabin. He closed the door behind them.
"Where are you headed?" he asked. "I mean, really? You seem too overwrought for sleep."
"Back to Dr. Hansard's office. I still have a code to crack. There's another ship out there, remember? Or so Wallace claims."
He winced, as i
f just then recalling the next crisis on the list. "Well, I'm certainly glad you're on the job. I can barely remember my own name at this point. Wallace is safely ensconced in the brig for the moment, so don't worry about him just now."
A tense silence drew out between them as they waited by the lifts, which had finally ground their way back to life. They entered an empty one and directed it to the deck for sick bay.
"Gemma," he said now that they were assured of privacy, "I believe it's best if we keep my, shall we say, rather special relationship with Maggie private. At least for now."
Gemma nodded. "As you are fond of saying, 'one crisis at a time'. I believe I can keep a secret."
With a ghost of a smile, he said in a quiet voice, "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For trying to save Maggie. For... for befriending her."
"I failed to stop them."
"But you did stall things a bit. You gave me time to get there. The poor blokes. They were all so afraid! It could have taken a very bad turn without you. And they did calm down when you showed them your support for her. No order of mine could have done that. I think they will accept her more readily when they see you two are thick as thieves! They respect you."
They exited the lift and entered an empty corridor. He stopped mid-stride and regarded her with the same inscrutable look that he had used at Cervantes' memorial service.
"And so do I." He reached for her hand. "With your kind permission."
She inclined her head at him, as she had at Dr. Pugh. He brushed his lips against her knuckles with the same tenderness his father had used. It was in that moment that she saw Elias Pugh in his face. No matter what other Code had been used in creating him, he was his father's son.
He straightened up, still holding her hand loosely by the fingers. "Awfully sorry about the shooting bit, old girl. I solemnly swear not to do it again, if you promise not to use Wallace as a punching bag. Or Rathbone, for that matter. Pax?"
"Pax," she replied. She grasped the hand that held hers firmly and pulled it down into a firm handshake. "Now, get us to Mars, Captain!"
He brayed with laughter. Without releasing her hand, he leaned in and said with a conspirator's whisper, "And after that, we'll figure out what we'll do once we get back to Earth. I believe we've all been sacked."
She tilted her head at him and said, "Well, you could always turn pirate. You certainly have the wardrobe for it. Instead of a Flying Dutchman, we'd have a Queen Anne's Revenge." She plucked at the wide flounces of his linen shirt that she still wore. "Then you might actually be interesting."
He seemed so very young in that moment. The glint she had seen in his eyes when she had first met him -- the one that had faded with the death of Cervantes -- had returned. They all seemed so young, too young, to venture so far from home. Even ancient Dr. Pugh seemed too much of a fledgling for the unknown wilds of space. But they would have to make do.
He squeezed her fingers warmly and released her. He re-entered the lift alone. As the door closed, he said, "Miss Aronnax, you slay me with hope."
She turned away from the doors and trudged to sick bay. Somehow even her toes knew that in Hansard's office, Caroline was already at work sorting the last of the punchcards. Nigel was nowhere to be seen.
Caroline embraced her with care and greeted her in sleepy tones. "Oh, what a day! What a day! I'm too tired to sleep!"
Caroline had already re-sorted the punchcards (shuffled out of order by the gravity failure) and stacked them on the table. She plucked the first one off the top and fed it into the portable reader. The keys on the adapted typewriter moved of their own accord, like some phantom secretary composing a cryptic message from the Beyond.
The two women watched the information flow from the carriage onto the paper. First was the header information, which was plain enough if one knew how to read it. Then, as expected, sets of numbers appeared, still concealing the true message within them.
"It's a book cipher, I'll wager," Gemma observed.
"How can you tell?"
"See the pattern of numbers here? The triplets? That pattern is used in a book cipher. See, this first number is a page number of a specific book. The second is a line number on that page, and the third is the letter on that line. Record each letter as you go, and you have your message. Assuming, of course, you have the corresponding book."
"Sounds tedious," replied Caroline. "And you do this by hand when you get your messages from your institute?"
"Yes."
"Didn't know geology was so top-secret! It would be faster with an engine, though. If you had the right book set up on punchcards, that is." She paused and studied the many titles on Dr. Hansard's shelves. "Question is, which book did they use?"
"That is the real trick. The person who sent the message could have used any book. To read the message, you'd have to have the same book, down to the same edition, to make sure everything matched up. One bit of good news, though, is that it might be easier to locate that book on an isolated ship than it would be back home. We're limited to what is actually on hand."
Caroline frowned. "There's plenty of books on this ship, though. Why, there are scores between the parlour and the science lab alone!"
Gemma chewed her lip. "It might be amongst Wallace's things, in his cabin. He would need privacy for this. And he'd have to get rid of his decrypted messages, if he wrote them down."
"Wouldn't be easy, unless he fed them to the goats or something," Caroline observed. "Rathbone would need to have the same book. He said he'd broken Wallace's code. He'd have to have another copy, most likely, or Wallace might've figured out what he was up to."
Gemma grabbed the Boolean's hand in her excitement. "Yes, you have it! How can we enter their cabins?"
"Well, they're both in Gent's Country. I don't feel right going there without--"
"I just left Pugh's cabin there, and no one objected."
"But you were with the Cap'n." Caroline shook her head. "We shouldn't bother him with this. He has a lot to do! This is our job, and Nigel should be helping. I'll get him--"
"Where is he? I can tell him what to look for."
Caroline shuffled her feet. "I think I'd best talk to him, just now."
"Whatever for?"
"He's still getting used to the idea of, um, Maggie. I understand why you science lot may have wanted to keep it hush-hush, but Nigel? He's not one for secrets."
"And I kept a huge one from him."
"Something like that, yeah."
"All right. I trust your judgment, Caroline. You've known him far longer than I have." She snatched a pencil and a blank sheet of paper from the many stacks on the table and scribbled down a few words. She handed it to Caroline. "He should compare the books they both have, but look for this one especially."
Caroline skimmed over the note. "I thought this might be the one you wanted," she said as she tapped the side of her nose with her finger. "I'll be a while. Why don't you try to catch a few winks while I'm gone?"
Alone again, Gemma slumped into a chair. Her ribs whined as she leaned towards the reader, still cranking away at the first message. The numbers blurred together, and she felt weariness wash over her once more.
Codes. Codes for messages. Codes for engines. Codes for Life. Even bloody codes for bloody knitting patterns. They were everywhere.
Even with all of her experience in and around science, Gemma found it extraordinary that one could connect two people by just comparing sequences of their Code, Code taken from strands of hair. Her fingers strayed to her locket. She stroked it and lost herself in memories of the owner of the hair hidden there. So much had happened in the past few days, and she ached to tell her lost friend everything that had transpired. Gemma wished that Jennie had been able to join Nigel on the ship. A mist formed over her eyes as she imagined it. What a joyous reunion it would have been!
The office felt emptier without Nigel there. Would he ever forgive their secrecy? Would she ever meet her namesake, her deare
st friend's daughter? Would she ever tell Nigel an even darker secret, tell him that his wife had been a thief, like her? What did he already know? By now he surely suspected something. It would be difficult to rest easy with this new spectre hovering over her.
"Dr. Pugh said we should come clean," she mused aloud. "Perhaps I should--"
Her train of thought froze in its tracks as the rest of that conversation clacked through her memory as precisely as the reader consumed the holes in the punchcards. She gripped the locket tightly in her fist.
Pugh had said that there had been no way to check the Code of the last Brightman Girl, the one Chapman could not find because she rested in an unknown grave.
Gemma opened the locket and touched the hair within. Perhaps the grave was not unknown; perhaps that daughter was not lost. There was one last test to perform; there was one last Code to crack.
She reached out to the now-familiar mental connection with her newest friend.
"Maggie, can you do me a favour?"
~~~~
Christophe
Christophe, standing tall on the front table of the mess hall, stared out across the sea of sailors as they settled into their seats. He was unsure if there was enough sleep in the world to let him catch up on his rest. He had, however, taken great pains to make sure that the crew had, especially Mr. Pritchard.
He clenched his fist behind his back, forcing the nervousness into his knuckles. This felt so very different from his brave speech at the beginning of their voyage. He hoped the right words would come. He could sense ripples of sentiment flowing through the people arrayed before him: bewilderment, anxiety, anger, frustration, exhaustion, and a teasing hint of curiosity. He could order an end to violence, but not an end to fear. It was there, slithering through the waves of his brave people and caressing them with its scales. He could see the dread in their eyes as he used to foresee a storm in streaks of grey and jagged flashes of light on the horizon. There was a squall ahead, on a different horizon, and there was nothing for it but to reef the sails and push through it.