by P. S. Power
The people there were helpful, polite and easy enough to get along with. Even the next few people that came in, were. It wasn’t until her order was almost ready, filling four fairly large boxes with fresh candy, that the place filled with people. A lot of them. The space wasn’t huge, so there were bodies going out the front door of the shop.
Two of them were reporters of some kind. At least one of the men moved in and stuck a microphone under her face. It could have been that he was just a hobbyist of some kind, she supposed. That had never come up though.
“Miss Farris! I’d heard your advertisement for this place, but we didn’t expect you to really come. Is the maple fudge good?” The guy was laughing a bit, but the girl got her a sample and brought it over. Gwen got ready to pretend it was the best thing ever, no matter what it tasted like.
It was like a small bite of sweet heaven, however.
“Oh, gosh… This is really, really good. Hey, um, can we get some for everyone here? I’ll pay for it. You should all try this.” Hopefully that wasn’t going to take more than twenty mets.
Interestingly, the proprietor of the place took her lucre for what she was taking away, being it was a business, but not for the samples. Then, a lot of people paid for a pound of the stuff after that, so it was probably worth it for them. They actually ran out of it, before she left. Not that other things weren’t going fast as well. Thankfully, she’d gotten there first.
That meant, when she teletransported to the Peregrine’s hangar she had lots of things to share. It was before the first wagon got there, so she was able to stow it in a room. That was Gloria’s space, but the woman smiled about it, instead of taking offense.
“Good idea. Now, let’s go over shifting the crystal. Everyone should be here inside an hour. Come on, Curly.”
The work after that was fairly steady. The crystal pack for the ship came in on a loading wagon, but it was a very heavy one, the charged crystal weighed in at several thousand pounds, which meant using the loading cradle. That was a heavy rope net, on a small, magically powered crane. That was made of brass, at least on the outside.
Groundling, dressed up a lot like she was at the moment, if in a darker brown jumpsuit, was the one that worked the controls on it. The men, including Tom, got to do the heavy lifting, which went flawlessly. Then, no one had greased the corner of it or anything moronic like that.
This time.
The man that had done that, apparently only once, was the one that had been left in Europa. Given they were at war, that probably wasn’t a thing that was comfortable for him. If he were still alive. She was willing to bet that he wasn’t really. That Groundling and Gloria had dumped that a-hole over the ocean when he’d tried to take liberties with the cook.
If it had been anyone else, other than Darnell the screw up, Gwen would have wondered if they’d been trying to place a spy in the country. Even at that… Not Darnell, perhaps, since he really was an unreliable clown. Someone that looked a bit like him could have been put in that way. Europans were pretty open about what they thought of as taking liberties as well. If the guy had only been trying to talk the cook out of her skirt, that wouldn’t be thought of anything all that bad, there.
A man like that might even be allowed to escape prison. Maybe get a job, if he could speak Mongolian. Not that anyone had mentioned that to her at all. There hadn’t even been a hint. It would require making the real Darnell vanish, too. The easy thing to do would be just having him enlist in the Air Navy. He might be a joker and she didn’t think highly of him for that, but he knew how to work on a ship. As far as she’d been told, being crew on the Peregrine was pretty much the same as the Air Navy, without the saluting. Though as far as she knew, thinking about it, they didn’t do that there.
They probably had something like that however.
Given everything, it would probably turn out to be the Nazi salute, just to mess with her head. That hadn’t been a thing there, thankfully. They’d had a different version of the great war, but no Hitler or death camps. Not that she’d been told about.
There were a half dozen crystals, all smaller than the main one, to be loaded in the maneuvering rockets on the sides of the craft. The thing was large enough to need six on either side. The bag up top, a silver thing filled with hydrogen, was simply vast. The Peregrine was only half sized, compared to most of the others in the fleet, too. It could carry about a hundred tons of goods when it was fully loaded, which was impressive enough.
Because it was small and captained by the fleet Admiral, Katherine’s Uncle Thomas, they tended to get most of the really expensive cargos. They had a low loss and breakage ratio, too, which meant that when you sent things in, they tended to get there. A big reason for that was how hard they worked all the time, securing the load, making sure nothing shifted in the air.
Tom smiled at her, as the rest of the men came in. The last one, Meter, waved as he did it. The man had a bit of a big mouth, but he was a pretty good worker. A bit too old to be in the Air Navy, perhaps, which was why he was still there. Fit however. Ready for whatever came.
Actually, looking around at the new people, it occurred to her that all of them were kind of hard seeming. Her included. Tomas stuck out a bit, but even he looked a little like he belonged on a military crew. That was a combination of his age, overall fitness and short haircut.
Nodding, she forced herself to smile.
Gloria waved at the first of the wagons coming in.
“Get ready! Incoming!”
Chapter twelve
Tomas actually pretended not to know her at all as they worked. Everything he did was that way. Well enough that she didn’t think that anyone other than Gloria and Groundling realized that he wasn’t exactly what he seemed, which was a decent looking guy who was trying to keep the job he’d gotten. He was conscientious the whole time.
As much as the old hands, which meant they took to him pretty easily. More so than they did her. Then, she’d started out by unloading about half of the cargo by herself, using magic. It was a great trick, and let her move more than any of the others could do by hand. On the great side, that meant no one thought she was a slacker, taking up valuable space and food on the airship.
The other side of that was the fact that most of the men weren’t all that high on the magic scale. At least she didn’t think they were. So it seemed kind of insane to them that she was there at all. The woman thing didn’t help, because they were from the world they were. On the great side, no one tried to get her into bed the whole time. A few did flirt with her a bit. Those were the newer people that didn’t know she was Gwen Farris. The older hands had a clue that way, but didn’t call her anything except for Curly the whole time. She had curly hair. It made it easy to remember.
Interestingly, the current voyage had them going to Eng. Which was, she was nearly certain, the entirety of the British Isles. Now it was a standalone country, instead of one of the four main kingdoms. Gloria explained the real deal there, however, which was different than Gwen had thought things were.
It happened when they were going over a steam rocket in engineering.
“Eng is one of the outliers. For political purposes it’s part of the Western Kingdom, even though it’s pretty far away. They’ve seen a lot of fighting because of that. Most of the fleet is in the waters off the coast. It’s not a great place to be right now. They need shipments, but can’t get things from Europa as easily as normal. Nothing but soldiers in their ports. Which is how it always goes. Most of this will be sold at a good price, thanks to that. Not that it affects our share. We get wholesale on this, like always.”
Gwen was using a fine wire brush, one with copper tines for scrubbing with, on a brass fitting. Carefully, since scratching the threads would probably make the seal fail. That would lower the efficiency. Eventually causing the rocket to have to be replaced.
“Good. We don’t need to be part of making things harder for anyone. Poor people. Hey… I need to go back, for my show?
Do you need anything from town? I can take an hour to get some shopping done.”
The woman looked at her, smiled, then shook her head.
“I’m good. Get with Admiral Welk before you leave? The officers might want something or other. You know how that type is. Their heads would fall off if we didn’t tighten their necks twice a month.”
It wasn’t true. Not that she’d been up to officer country in the last week. She hadn’t even seen any of them, to be honest. After cleaning up the space and putting the rocket together by herself, which Gloria observed the whole time, but didn’t comment on, since it was all done correctly, Gwen winked at her.
“I’m on that then. I need to grab a pad.”
She was going into the station in her work clothing, since she hadn’t brought nicer gear for that part of things. Then, the telesar listeners of the city wouldn’t care at all. Like radio, no one would ever see her. Not unless they followed her to the candy shop. Gwen wasn’t planning a return trip that week, unless someone needed more candy. The men had gone through it like the stuff was made of sugar or something. It had been good. Enough so that she could see getting addicted to it.
Gwen knew the way up top, having been there before on previous trips. It was all the way up, which meant going forward, up several flights of wooden stairs. The railings were all polished brass, the work being done often enough that they gleamed, even with the bag up top blocking most of the direct sunlight coming from the left side of the ship. Above as well, of course. It was only about ten-thirty in the morning, which was why she was still there at all.
The pilot house was being manned by a familiar face, though it wasn’t Admiral Welk this time. No, it was Kelvin Westmorland. Except of course that Kelvin was roughly in admin and not an airship pilot that she knew of. Also, he didn’t work for Vernor Industries. Westmorlands couldn’t really do that. Not yet. They worked for the kingdom and king. He was dressed in the wrong uniform, given that.
When he turned to her, to see who was there, his eyes seemed nearly empty, compared to the light and smiling man she knew.
“Hello, Miss. Is there a problem down below?” That was one reason she might be there. The other, more likely one, would be getting the man coffee. Possibly a snack, but most people didn’t do that until tea time.
“I need to go into town, back home, for a few hours. I thought that I’d check and see if anyone needed anything? Candy, tobacco, that kind of thing?”
“How are you going to do that? It’s a long way to the ground.”
He sounded bland about it, instead of either worked up, doubting or like he actually understood that she could just go and do that kind of thing. Which he did know. He’d seen part of her training, personally.
Which meant he wasn’t actually there.
“Teletransport. I’m Gwen. I don’t think we’ve met?”
“Larry Sport.” He waved at the control wheel in front of him, and nodded. “Pilot, clearly. That, or we’re all in a lot of trouble. You can teletransport? Why are you working here?”
The words sounded baffled, as if he honestly didn’t know. Which, she realized, might just be the truth. If he were trained to not think of himself as being anything except the person he was pretending to be at the moment. If that was the case, he was either infiltrating the ship, or more likely, was going in under cover, to their destination.
“Oh, you know, they needed the help with loading. Everyone is leaving to join the military right now, so…” She flipped a palm, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
Larry winced.
“I tried. Weak heart, unfortunately. So I get to do this. It pays better, so there’s that. I could use a paper? Almost any will do. It’s what I miss, doing this kind of work. We can get the telesar at least. Do you have any favorite shows?”
She did, which was interesting enough, since it was a thing to talk about from the world she was in.
“Agatha Longbranch? That probably isn’t your speed. Anyway, I have the show before hers. Well, there’s an hour where Brian will be on alone, but…”
Larry, the man who definitely wasn’t a Westmorland put there to spy on someone, grinned at her.
“Ah. I get it then. Gwen Farris? Splendid. So, not only are you a woman from another world, but you do errands, too? I should get you to take me someplace, using your magic.” He laughed then, shaking his head. “Sorry, that’s impossible. Even I know that.”
She didn’t nod, since she could do that very thing.
“Well, let me know? Anyway, I should get with the Captain.” That was the Admiral. He ran the fleet, but on the airship, he was the Captain, regardless of his rank. The trick to that was that she didn’t know where the man was. Not that it was hard for her to find him.
That happened when the man himself walked through the heavy wooden door, holding a rather nice brown mug. It smelled like coffee. That was one of the things that everyone on the ship drank. They didn’t do tea there. The Western Kingdom loved it though. Why that was, she didn’t get at all.
“Captain. I was just talking to Larry. I’m going home for a bit. Into work at WGN? I can pick up some light supplies, if it’s needed?” She was about to list things off, when the man smiled at her.
He was nice looking. Dashing, to be honest. In a mature way. Lean, with silver and black hair, and dapper in his ship uniform, which was blue, and had gold on the shoulders and cuffs. It could have been a joke, but it actually looked very tasteful.
“Gwen! That sounds interesting, to be totally truthful. I don’t need anything at the moment. Can we send you out for things at need? I don’t know how hard that kind of thing is to do on a body. Can you get back? The ship is moving…”
She nodded, since it was a thing she’d done before. A few times. It wasn’t even hard.
“Sure. I’m coming back to the ship, not the space it’s in. I know it pretty well, so it isn’t that hard. Really, I can come and go pretty easily, as long as I don’t have to carry anyone. If you want me to do that… Well, that one takes a bit out of me.” It was just the truth.
The thing there was that Kelvin would know that and Admiral Welk might, or might not. Gwen hadn’t actually sat down with the man for a long discussion about things. Especially in the last few years. She’d been gone, Katherine having taken over. Then when she was back in control, she’d kind of ignored a lot of people that might have been worried about what had happened. Mainly due to her own personal shame on the whole thing.
Which was probably selfish of her. It hadn’t even occurred to her that some of them might have been feeling poorly about the whole thing for completely different reasons. To Gwen the issue was her failure. Always. It was hard for her to get that no one seemed to really hold the whole thing against her, personally. No, most people seemed to blame Katherine. Her family as well. The parents were always to blame in the Western Kingdom. It was considered their responsibility to have raised their children correctly. Even once they were adults. That probably extended to the rest of the family as well.
Here she’d been hiding away. Because she felt horrible about what had happened. At the same time, these others might have been avoiding her. Not because they didn’t like her. No, because they felt just as bad about it all as she did. Even if she didn’t see how that could be the fact of the matter.
The whole thing baffled Gwen. The real issue was, she kind of had to wonder if it might not be the case. That people like Admiral Welk felt that he, somehow, had wronged her. Gwen Farris. Possessing spirit from a different reality.
The man nodded at her and smiled politely.
“Ah? Well, we can put that to use, I wager! For the moment I’m fine. We just started the cruise, after all. I’d heard that you were doing a program on the telesar. In fact, I heard the last episode. That was… Very different. A bit too honest, for most.” There was no emphasis on the words, but also no condemnation in it. The man was just giving his opinion.
“I know. I just need for people to see what’s actually go
ing on. Everyone has been thinking the wrong thing about Ethyl and Robert for far too long. If I want people to see the truth, I have to give it to them. I’m just amazed that no one has called me on all the lies that I told them originally. Well! I bet that will be what happens today. Still, I can take my lumps. We’re good though? You don’t need any candy or anything? A newspaper? I’m already running past a news stand for Larry here. He gets whatever is new though. No specific orders, unless you want me to get it wrong.” She grinned about the idea. After all, she doubted that she’d known where to go for most things.
“I should be good, thank you, Gwen. We can send a list with you later as well, if needed? We might have some things in a few days.” Again, the words were completely bland sounding.
As if he wasn’t suggesting something completely different than getting a candy bar, or some fudge.
“Sure? Just let me know a bit ahead of time, so I can get them from the right place. Or… If someone needs to be moved around? That is harder, but can be done. If it comes up.” Gwen had to work not to add anything to the idea after that.
The Admiral just smiled at her, moving with her as she went toward the door.
“I… I’ve been rather busy of late, I fear. I should have made time to visit with you. Forgive me?” The man seemed to mean it.
Gwen nodded.
“I was working the whole time, more or less. For the King and Queen. Guard duty, so it wasn’t hard, but you know about that kind of thing.” She grinned then and shared what she’d just been thinking. “Plus, you know, I was hiding from everyone. What Kat did… I’m always amazed that I wasn’t put to death for it. It wasn’t me, but… I don’t know. It’s so hard to work out what to do about it.”
The Admiral just took a long, slow breath, then made a face that looked a bit chagrinned.
“I think that many of us are in the same basic place that way. I should have run to your side, the instant I heard you were back. Instead I stayed away, fearing that you’d call me to the carpet for not aiding you enough to prevent such a thing in the first place. I don’t know what I could have managed, but it’s my responsibility to care for you. Better than has been done.”