Washington's Dirigible (The Timeline Wars, 2)

by John Barnes

  The only problem with all this was that I was still broke and ragged.

  I had just rounded the corner onto Broadway—and that was really a surprise, for Broadway at the time was a wide, tree-lined mall, thick with elms and chestnuts just budding out—when something caught my eye, and I quietly slipped over toward the trees and the traffic on my right to get a good look without being seen.

  Sure enough, there I was again … it was my double, this time getting into a cab a block away, headed the other way on Broadway from where I was going.

  Instantly I was turned around and headed for the wharf again; I wanted to know where he was going and what he was up to Besides, I was fairly sure that he had not yet spotted me, and one of the best ways not to be spotted is to be behind the guy, not in front of him … if I didn’t let him go, then he couldn’t surprise me later.

  I could have saved myself most of the walk; he finally arrived at the Exchange, at the foot of Broad Street, not three blocks from where I’d gotten off the Brooklyn Ferry. He didn’t stop there, however, but turned to the left and headed for the wharves.

  I had little trouble following him in the crowd, for his one-horse cab had actually moved more slowly than I could walk in the crowded streets, and there were so many people down around the markets that it wasn’t difficult to stay concealed. Even after he got out of the cab, I wasn’t afraid of losing him, because he was making such a direct path through the crowded market stalls and down to the wharf that there was kind of a cloud of disturbance around him—he seemed to have no problem with just shoving people out of his way.

  When he reached the wharf, he headed straight for one big, modern liner, and I realized I was about to have a major problem here—its stacks were already puffing smoke as she built up a head of steam, and from the look of the tides coming over, I guessed they’d be sailing about noon.

  The liner was the Royal Hanover, and it was another strange contraption, a product of the way that Rey Luc had goosed the technology of this timeline along. There were four tall, thin stacks that looked more like the stacks of a Mark Twain-kind of riverboat to me than anything for an ocean liner. Each of the stacks had two wooden masts running parallel to it, a scant foot or two away; presumably those held up the stacks in high winds, since they were all bolted together, but just as obviously they could be used for rigging sails in the event of an emergency.

  The Royal Hanover had what was pretty clearly a hybrid between paddle wheels and screws; probably the better metals developed so far weren’t available in quantity enough to make drive shafts that wouldn’t buckle under the load, so it wasn’t possible to just put a bladed propeller on the back. But paddle wheels are pretty inefficient in that you’re moving most of the wheel out of the water most of the time. So they had compromised by putting a huge cone-shaped wooden screw on the stern, with hundreds of slender wooden blades arranged like a shallow spiral staircase.

  The whole ship had been hung with so many fake columns and pilasters that it looked like a storage room at a theater where they did a lot of the Greek tragedies.

  And, from my standpoint, the most notable feature was that there was a man at the gangplank checking tickets and signing people in. The ship would probably depart within three hours, and when it did, there went my best chance to track my doppelganger—not to mention that he would get a head start of several days in London. I didn’t even know if there were any more berths available on the Royal Hanover …

  I had just about figured that out, and sidled up one little alley while doing it, when I saw the other Mark Strang come down off the ship again. He checked a pocket watch and talked with the guy taking tickets, then set off in a considerable hurry—probably getting some last-minute thing for the trip, or maybe just finding a quiet corner to send a message back to his superiors in one of the Closer timelines.

  I watched him go, and a thought dawned on me—a beautifully simple thought. I wanted to be on that ship. And there was no problem at all with that, because I already was on that ship.

  I let another five minutes go by, to make this convincing, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t turn out to have gone somewhere a block away and already be coming back. Luck was with me for once, so when the five minutes had passed, I strolled up the gangplank.

  The ticket taker, of course, took one look at a man in a ragged coat and breeches, ruined shirt, no hose, and obviously old and worn boots, and got ready to heave me back down the gangplank. I walked up very close to him, and then said, “Do you recognize me?”

  He stared for a long minute, and then said, “Mr. Strang, is it? What on Earth are you doing in them clothes, sir?”

  “Keep your voice down,” I said, keeping mine very low. “You know I’m a Customs agent, of course, but in fact I also do His Majesty’s business”—and I dropped my voice very low—“as a mumble mumble rhubarb. Lord Harumph takes an interest in these matters, you might say.”

  He nodded and laid a finger beside his nose. “Ah. We carry many such passengers lately.”

  “I’ll warrant you do. Well, I shall be coming on and off a few more times in the next few hours. Most of the time you will not see me—believe me, sir, I am good enough at my trade for that!—but should it happen that you do see me, it would be a very good thing for your King and country if you did not, if you take my meaning; just, er, wave me through, if you could. I just wanted to make sure you had a good look at my face so that you could—”

  “Recognize without questioning. Of course, sir, go right aboard and do whatever you need do. But we still do sail at 12:15 sharp, sir, so make sure you’re aboard.”

  “I shall certainly make sure I’m aboard,” I agreed. “Thank you so much for your understanding.”

  “Er, for that matter,” he added, “I should assume then that you have means a bit, er, beyond those of your occupation?”

  “You may assume it.”

  “Well, then, sir, I shan’t worry about the deposit you’ve put into ship’s safe; just see that a man comes round to pay the Hanover when we make port, and see that he, er—”

  “Is able to compensate you for your trouble and assistance. Very well, and thank you!”

  Not only had I gotten aboard, I had just opened an unlimited credit account with the bad guy’s name on it. I was pretty proud of myself.

  It took no more than ten minutes to find a good, out-of-the-way corner and get to sleep under a pile of canvas there. With any luck at all they wouldn’t be using the sails this voyage—this might make a good place to sleep for several days.

  I stayed down there, getting hungry but being cautious, until long after I had felt the ship start to move.

  -10-

  It was late afternoon when I finally let myself emerge on deck, and I was careful to come up slowly. Unfortunately, I couldn’t very well ask, “Has anyone seen me around? Where am I?” and I really did not want to meet myself—not yet, anyway. I had had some time, besides sleeping, to do some thinking, and I had a better idea of what I wanted and needed to do to get the mission accomplished.

  In the first place, there had to be something that the Closers had done besides just dispatch my counterpart to stir up trouble in Boston. I mean, I’m a bright, talented guy and all that—who should know better?—but I am not Superman, and this guy was exactly as capable as I was, but not any more capable. He couldn’t possibly have created a situation teetering on the brink of war just by covertly financing a few hotheads on both sides, stirring up hatred here and there, and that sort of thing. That’s a harassing action, not the main process.

  Moreover, I’m not a subtle guy, the Closers are noted for liking brute force, and yet somehow whatever was being done was being done invisibly. …

  That meant the Closers had somebody a lot more subtle and shrewd than I am on the case, and most likely that person was in London. So almost for sure the other Mark Strang would be going there to meet him.

  Now, that left me three options. The first one appealed to me because it w
as action and it was simple: kill my alter before he got to London and take his place at the rendezvous, then play it by ear and try to penetrate the Closer operation that was probably active there. Easy to do, and I’d supply my own alibi doing it; as soon as the body was over the side and out of sight, there would be no evidence that anything wrong had happened.

  Two, stick close to my alter, spy on him, follow him, and eventually figure out what was up; then use the knowledge when I got to London. That other Strang might even get away, though I kind of hoped not; he was pretty clearly not the biggest fish in this particular pond anyway. That was the prudent and intelligent thing to do.

  The third thought, which I kept pushing to the back of my mind, was this: the Mark Strang they had looked so much like me, and had so many features in common with me, that he could not have been from a timeline at all far from my own. Chances were that he and I shared a lot of background, and that meant perhaps that we shared many values.

  It was far too much of a gamble, but in principle—after all, a Crux Op on mission is only evaluated by results, not by how he gets them, I told myself, and then had to shove the thought away, but it kept coming back.

  In principle it might be possible to turn that “other me” to our side. He could not be so very different from me, and if he was not, then his heart should go to the ATN, as mine had.

  Just where that piece of lunacy was getting into my brain from, I really could not say. My best guess was that I was thinking of the many discussions of values that Chrys and I had had in our letters; her timeline believed in changes of heart very deeply, and many of their favorite stories and plays had villains who reformed at the last moment, usually for the sake of sheer pity. I thought those were lovely fairy tales. … but then she thought our stories, in which violence finally settles the question, were naive because violence usually just means more violence.

  If I could win by changing his heart, it would please Chrysamen a great deal.

  I suppose if I’d been stuck with him on a desert island or something, with no clock running and without so many lives at stake, I might have considered it or even given it a try. After all, it couldn’t hurt that much to try. …

  But there was just too much at risk. And the fact was that I hated Closers, hated them for all that they had done, and to see a version of myself working for them was altogether too much. Whatever might please Chrys, if it were just up to me, I’d have already fed my doppelgänger to the fish, and if I’d been able to put him in alive, and watch a group of small sharks gradually consume him, I’d have stood there laughing with glee while I watched.

  So, since there was that idea I couldn’t get rid of, which seemed dumb, and the thing I wanted to do, which seemed rash … and the most prudent course—I decided to go with the most prudent. I would let him live, spy on him, and see what I could learn.

  And then maybe if I was lucky, I would feed him to the fish.

  So when I came up on deck, I was mentally prepared for the worst possible case—I’d pop out and he’d see me—but no such thing happened. I had noticed, and had heard from some of the men in Boston, that my counterpart was a little more decadent than I, had more of a taste for liquor and fine food, gambled with more enthusiasm, and so on. Warren had assured me he had a reputation as a “whoremaster,” which is what the eighteenth century, with its keen sense of calling things by their right name, called what we call a “stud.”

  On the other hand, unlike me, he hadn’t shown much interest in books or etchings or anything of the sort. Boston at the time should have been a spectacular place for finding all sorts of Early American crafts and arts—after all, Paul Revere wasn’t being distracted so much by politics and was getting to concentrate more on his silversmithing—and if I had been stationed there on a long-term basis, my house would have been full of such things. This version of myself, though, seemed to own neither art nor books.

  So I figured with nothing much else to do on shipboard, and not being all that good at entertaining himself, my counterpart would probably be attending the “rum and gambling in the forward saloon” that was scheduled. Meanwhile, there was a great big tea in the rear saloon—and in the fine old British tradition that would mean a full-fledged buffet meal.

  I filled my plate four times, leaving it on my counterpart’s bill, and each time crouched in the corner, looking as crazed as I could manage, and wolfed it down. It wasn’t so much a matter of having lost my manners, though I was hungry enough not to be too fussy, as not wanting anyone to look too closely and perhaps later ask my counterpart how he had changed his clothing or his behavior so quickly.

  At any rate, the mutton sausage, corn bread, and sweet cakes were all quite good, and I managed to slip a lot of the last plateful into my pockets for future reference.

  Since the afternoon was very fine, and I suspected my other self of being the kind that did not come out till dark, I let myself enjoy a brief view of sunset from the stern. It was cold out there, and I was still pretty ragged, but it was nice to get a breath of fresh air, and once you’re out of sight of land the sea is about the most restful thing human beings have ever found to look at, even when it’s wild; a lot of the Romantic painters were fond of it for just that reason, and standing here on the rolling deck, realizing that some of those painters had already been born, I found myself hoping that this timeline would still have its Romantic period.

  I had just decided that I had best get back below-decks when the steward came by and exchanged glances with me; then he smiled and said, “Sir, I might mention that if you want to be inconspicuous here, your dress as a beggar is a giveaway. No man dressed as yourself could afford to be aboard …”

  I nodded. “Unfortunately it’s the only disguise I was able to bring with me from the city.”

  “I might arrange something; several of our sailors are tailors as well, you know, for on long voyages there must be such, and they draw a bit of extra pay for it. I could look about and see if someone might be found to make you another set of clothes … something to conceal your appearance, so that you did not look yourself.”

  “It’s a magnificent idea,” I said, and I had to admit it was. The steward was undoubtedly going to mark up the price by several hundred percent, and he knew there were deep pockets to pay the bill. “But the tailor, or yourself, must not bring the clothes to my cabin—I have reason to believe that certain people who are no friends to the King are searching my cabin every time I am out of it. There’s a pile of canvas—I believe it’s the auxiliary sails—just below us here, is there not?”

  “You’ve a sharp eye, sir.”

  “Sometime when you see me up and about, place the clothing just under the port, aft side of that pile.” It was the farthest corner from where I was sleeping. Even if he happened to synchronize it by my doppelgänger, that should be all right. “It need be nothing fancy; indeed the main thing that would help is if it concealed my face, and looked like something a man might wear on shipboard. I should be happy to pay full price for old clothing if it got it to me the sooner.”

  The steward couldn’t quite keep his eyes from lighting up at that point; the deal just kept getting better. “In that case, sir, I think we might well have something under there tomorrow morning.”

  “Absolutely splendid! Your King will be grateful!”

  “If he ever hears of it, I suppose, sir. Will you want anything else?”

  “Hmm. Now that you mention it … I will be in the forward saloon for much of this evening, dressed, er, differently from this fashion, shall we say. I would like it very much if a large gin punch—very sweet, with the gin doubled—should find its way to me. Make that two, actually … but only if you can find me one other thing …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “A fellow gets lonely on these damned voyages, and the service from which I draw my pay is understanding, but not that understanding. Do you suppose there might be, among the women on board, someone who would like to be my companion for this eveni
ng, one who would come to me and make it appear as if she were drawn to me, and to, er, do my pleasure for the night? If you could draw on some of my private money, which is in the ship’s safe, to pay for this and arrange it—so that, you see, I need not be conscious of handling money …”

  “Why, surely, sir! I should be delighted. I’ve one with red hair, plump, and nice in the chest, and another that’s young and just learning, very thin and dark—”

  I knew my own tastes well enough to say, “Thin and dark should do it. But anyway, if it is arranged, see that she doesn’t mention money, that she merely acts as if she were fascinated with my person. It’s a whimsy I like to indulge.”

  “And a very good one, sir, and popular. I’ve handled such things before. Indeed if you like she can play the virgin.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary. Let her be, even, a little coarse in her approach. But see that I have two of that sweet gin punch first—say it’s from an admirer. Gin, you see, tends to enhance my prowess.”

  “It can all be as you’ve said, sir—”

  “And naturally while you are in the safe I should expect you to take some handsome fee for services rendered and arranged. Shall we say one third of whatever the young lady gets?”

  “I get that already sir, but you mean in addition?”

  “I do indeed. My employer, you will see, shall make all good—as we enter port, I’ll give you a note to send to them that will bring them at once to the dock with the gold required.” Another thought occurred to me. “Oh—and if you’d be so kind—I have reason to believe they watch me constantly and closely when I am myself and not while I am in disguise. Therefore, if you could avoid speaking of any private arrangements whatsoever when I am not in disguise—”