“I shall do my best, sir.”
Jonathan didn’t know Morse code, so he let Porter take the best position to see the Palmetto, now close enough to make out individual hull details.
“Tell them who we are and that we wish to speak to your brother.”
Porter operated the lamp in a quick and professional manner. When he finished, someone on the Palmetto signaled back. Jonathan couldn’t keep track of the rapid blinking of the other vessel’s signal lamp, but Porter nodded, his lips moving as he followed the series.
“All right, they’re giving us permission to dock with them.”
“Dock with them?” Jonathan wrinkled his brow in consideration. “I thought your brother could just give us the code and we’d be on our way.”
“I thought perhaps it might be best if the signalman doesn’t know precisely what we need. It would be safer for him if we talk to him aboard the Condor.” Porter lowered his voice. “You may have to pay to buy out his contract for the remainder of his tenure.”
“I understand. I’ll pay whatever it takes.” He wondered what his father would make of all this expenditure when he finally returned home from this adventure, but it didn’t make him any more hesitant with his wallet. Besides, he’d more than earned his keep as the Circumferential Rail’s public face, and he was happy to finally have a worthy beneficiary.
“Stand by for docking, comrades. It gets bumpy from here.” Gusarov pulled several levers to extend mirrors on arms beyond the prow so he could see along the flanks of the Condor as the Palmetto approached from behind.
Jonathan watched the Fulton as it crawled closer toward them. He could see a cupola mounted above the prow with a space-suited sailor manning a rocket tube. He knew a single rocket would spell doom for the stovepipe, and shivered at the idea of dying in the vacuum of space. He’d seen daguerreotypes of men whose spacesuits had burst open, or had been in pressurized cabins that failed. They’d been turned half inside out, their flesh torn asunder by fluids forced out, and then freeze-dried into powdery husks.
The Palmetto pulled alongside the Condor and Gusarov opened his thrusters all the way. Even though he knew no sound could carry across even the narrowest void of vacuum, it still seemed odd to Jonathan that the larger vessel moved in such silence. Then their hulls touched, and the squealing roar of metal on metal mixed with the unfamiliar vibration of the Palmetto’s powerful drive set Jonathan’s teeth chattering.
Gusarov roared in Russian fury. “Bozhe moy, Muñoz, hold that piece of shit still!” He worked the controls and then lunged for the airlock clamps. Clanks and thumps sounded throughout the cabin as Gusarov secured the Condor to the Palmetto and someone aboard the schooner did the same. The legless man climbed back up to the pilot’s station hand-over-hand, and dialed back all the thrusters and steam pressure. Satisfied that his ship was secured, Gusarov rejoined Jonathan and Porter by the airlock.
“Keep hands in plain sight and do not make any threatening moves, comrades.” Gusarov spun the wheel to open his side of the airlock. “They do not know who we are for sure, and they will be armed.”
Jonathan raised his hands and spread a pleasant smile across his face.
The Palmetto’s door swung inward and Jonathan found himself face to face with a dozen armed crewmen of every possible ethnic background. The scent of their sweat and the sharp tang of spicy cuisine floated into the Condor. Men pointed crossbows and low-velocity pistols at them. One of the men, dark-skinned with his hair collected in short, thick locks like fingers, lowered his crossbow.
“Jefferson?” he asked. “That really you?”
“Hello, Lincoln.”
A swarthy Spaniard holstered his pistol and put his hands on his hips. “Looks like they’re not pirates, hombres. Es una lástima. What do you want, Russkie?”
“It is not me, Muñoz. My employer. Introducing none other than Mr. Jonathan Orbital, of Orbital Railway.”
Jonathan stepped forward, careful to avoid making any threatening gestures. “Greetings, Captain Muñoz, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me. We need the services of your crewman, Mr. Porter, for a mission of vital importance.”
Lincoln Porter tilted his head sideways and stared at them in confusion.
“Vital importance, is it? Sounds interesting. But Mr. Porter is of vital importance to my crew, and I’m afraid the answer must be no, señor.” Muñoz hooked his thumbs in his broad belt and grinned from behind his bushy black beard.
“I’m going to take my checkbook out of my inside jacket pocket,” said Jonathan. “You name a fair price and I’ll buy out Mr. Porter’s contract.” Jonathan took a deep breath and with exaggerated caution, reached into his jacket. He heard the sharp intakes of breath and the tensing of trigger fingers even over the roar of the Palmetto’s boiler. The sound of the crew relaxing at the sight of his checkbook was palpable.
Everyone’s attention turned to Captain Muñoz. He scratched his jaw. Jonathan was certain he’d never been presented with such a decision before.
“Jesús lloró,” said the captain at last. “Two hundred francs and you can have him.”
“Yebat’ moy krest’yanskiy zadnitsu!” shouted Gusarov. “That’s robbery and he knows it. Palmetto is less than twenty hours from port and there is no job Mr. Porter is doing that cannot be done by at least two other men in that time.” He turned to Jonathan. “Fifty francs and he should thank you for saving him extra cost in air and payload mass.”
Jonathan had been about to write out the check, but stopped at Gusarov’s outburst. He turned back to look upon the black-bearded captain of the Palmetto. “Well? How about it, Captain?”
“Maldito seas, Russkie!” Muñoz slapped his thigh in disgust and then pointed at Jonathan. “Seventy-five francs, Señor Orbital, and not a cent less. And you’ll pay him his wages to boot.”
“Done.” Jonathan wrote out the check. “The CR offices on Pinnacle Station will honor this payment.”
“Muy bien. Porter, get your kit and get off my ship, you freeloader. I’ve got a schedule to keep. And Russkie?”
“Da, Muñoz?”
“Coma la mierda de mi culo.” Muñoz gave Gusarov an unpleasant grin, showing missing and rotted teeth from scurvy.
Gusarov only laughed and turned away from the airlock to get the Condor ready to depart.
Porter clasped Lincoln’s hand as the dreadlocked man climbed aboard with a beat-up leather satchel slung over his shoulder. Once the men were beside each other, Jonathan could see the family resemblance. Lincoln was much thinner and seemed quite a bit younger than the elder butler, and intense curiosity filled his face.
“What’s all this about, Jeff?”
“I’ll let Mr. Orbital explain.” Porter shut and dogged the airlock.
“We need to get to the Albatross. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know the proper semaphore code for safe passage?”
Lincoln glanced at his brother. Porter nodded back at him. “Yes, sir.”
“Then that’s where we’re heading at our best speed, Mr. Porter. A young lady has been kidnapped by pirates and I intend to rescue her.”
“Stand by,” called Gusarov from the pilot’s chair. “We are casting off.”
“Call me Linc. Mr. Porter is my father and sometimes my brother.” Lincoln grinned, white teeth sparkling in his dark face, and reached out with a lanky forearm to twist his hand in the cargo netting along the bulkhead. Porter did likewise, as if space travel was becoming second nature to him. Jonathan didn’t remember to brace himself and the back of his head struck a painful blow against the aft bulkhead. He rubbed what would later become yet another sore lump and shook his head to clear away the stars wobbling in his vision.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but the Sargasso’s not a place for folk like yourself. The Albatross even more so.” Linc made a show of staring everywhere in the cabin except at Jonathan.
Jonathan sighed. “I know I’ll be out
of my element, but I promised Miss Renault’s father that I’d see her returned to him safe and sound, and I stand by that even in the face of . . . unsavory elements.”
“She is either quite a lady or you’re half crazy.”
Jonathan grinned. “Perhaps a bit of both, Linc.”
For the next two days, the Condor ate up the miles between the Earth and the Moon, making for the spot where the two celestial bodies’ gravity canceled each other out. The four men played a lot of cards and shared their stories: Gusarov regaled them with tales of his life as an intrepid solo pilot; Porter told some of his stories about flying a dirigible for Britain during their war with Egypt; Linc talked about his experiences as a midshipman on the Palmetto and some of the bizarre cargoes they’d carried.
Jonathan, who’d grown up in a rich family in a well-to-do part of Houston, didn’t have many stories to tell, although he’d listened to others tell them. He whiled away many lazy afternoons as a boy, his nose buried inside the pages of a dime novel. Back in those days, he never imagined that he might one day live out one of those adventures. Though the same could be said for even a week ago. The closer they drew to their destination, the more anxious he became. Though the rigors of space travel had finally started to go easier on his body, simple nerves made up the difference in his gut, and he wondered just what they might find at the Albatross, and if it would match some of the riveting and sometimes horrifying stories he’d heard over the years about the outpost built by Nikola Tesla himself.
He’d met the man back in 1895, when Tesla was just shy of forty and Jonathan a gangly lad of fifteen. The inventor spent a week visiting with Jonathan’s father and grandfather, expressing keen interest in the design of the Circumferential Rail and trying to convince them to operate it on electricity instead of steam. He wound up investing in the construction of McKinley Tower and Roosevelt Station, and in turn the Orbitals shipped a tremendous amount of material into space where Tesla built this beast.
Tesla had promised never again to return to the world that spurned his genius, and from the look of the Sargasso, Jonathan judged the man might never need to. Clumps of debris spun in slow, graceful revolutions, bound together by thick cables. Warm gaslights flickered within some of them. Others sported the steady glow of electric lighting, and instead of spinning, they sprouted turreted cannons and rocket tubes, ready to foist death upon any who trespassed there. Amid all of it was the hulking beast of the Albatross, which stayed steady with the telltale yellow glow of electricity. He could only see a few schooners docked along her flanks, but stovepipes jetted back and forth on whatever errands the Sargassians required.
“Now is time for code, Gospodin Linc,” said Gusarov. He’d shed as much velocity as he could from the maneuver around the moon and the Condor coasted toward the giant ship in the distance. “We will be within range of outermost guns in only few minutes. Surely bastards already have sighted us.”
Linc moved to the semaphore cabinet, selected a series of colored plates, and attached them to the spring line. A minute later, the flags unfurled outside of the Condor and the men waited in breathless silence.
“How will we know if it’s the right code?” Jonathan whispered, as if his voice might somehow carry to the gun platforms and encourage the crews to fire.
Gusarov looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. “We will not be shot out of space.”
They drifted past the first gun platforms and continued on unchallenged. Gusarov issued regular puffs of steam from the vents, goosing the stovepipe to put a little more distance between it and the turrets. None of them spun to follow their progress.
Jonathan blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I don’t mind saying I was nervous as hell about this part.”
“This is the easy part, sir,” said Linc. “Wait until we get inside.”
Gusarov handled the docking procedure with smooth grace. Those few random items no longer tied down started to drift in the absence of thrust. “No gravity here, comrades. Look to your boots if you cannot live without floor.”
Linc spun open the airlock door. Their ears popped as their air equalized with the under-pressured station atmosphere.
The miasma of human waste, stale lubricants, and acrid chemicals hit Jonathan like a blow to the chest. He winced and wiped his nose, which started running within seconds of the door opening.
“My God, how do people stand it?” He wished he had a handkerchief soaked in cologne like upper-class fops were supposed to carry. He was shocked Nikola Tesla would allow his greatest creation to become a cesspit of filth.
Linc laughed. “Life’s different in deep space, sir. You get used to it after a while. Just watch yourself blowing your nose, because snot don’t always fly where you aim it up here.”
Jonathan turned up the collar of his coat and buttoned it tight to ward off the chill in the air as well as the questing fingers of beggars and pickpockets. He pulled his goggles down to ride about his throat instead of his forehead, hoping they’d be a little more difficult to steal. During the voyage, he and the others had discussed the best way to proceed, and Linc had offered to take them to a spacers’ bar he knew of where shady people worked their dirty deals. If anyone could tell them where to find the pirates who’d kidnapped Cecilie, it would be someone there, provided they weren’t shot on site for asking.
They entered the Albatross in a tight-knit group. Linc took the lead along with his brother, while Gusarov drifted along beside Jonathan, resting one hand on his shoulder to keep from floating too far away. The giant chamber was cold enough that they could see their breath in the dim lighting from naked electric bulbs mounted along wall and ceiling. Cables strung from point to point formed an aerial path for pedestrians to follow. Longtime and born spacers cruised along them like spiders, brushing them with fingertips and toes to keep on course. Radiators vented heat into the chamber at regular intervals and people clustered around them for warmth. Overhead, great panes of leaded glass were held by an iron and brass lattice, allowing some flickering starlight to add to the dim glow within the enormous vessel.
“Where’s the sun from here?” asked Jonathan.
“Below your feet and astern,” said Gusarov. “At this angle, Albatross does not get sunlight, moonlight, or—”
Gusarov’s hand left Jonathan’s shoulder. Jonathan turned to see where he’d gone and something hard hit him in the side of the head. His consciousness fled.
Sometime later, Jonathan awakened to Gusarov’s boozy breath in his face. His head throbbed where he’d been struck. He wondered how many more hits to the head a man could take before his brains became permanently scrambled. Someone had crammed him and the legless pilot into a rough burlap sack that stank of sour apples. He couldn’t feel a surface anywhere around him and suspected they’d been set adrift.
“Mr. Gusarov. Mikhail. Wake up,” whispered Jonathan.
Gusarov muttered something unintelligible and shifted his position.
“Wake up!”
The Russian jerked awake. “Whuzz . . . Moya golova bolit. Some ublyudok mugged us. Where are we?”
“I don’t know. Can you move?”
“A bit. I am checking pockets to see what they left me.” Gusarov’s arms brushed against Jonathan’s crotch as he shifted around. “Bastards did not take belt. I have blade stuck in it. Hang on while I dig it out. Not move, unless you fancy singing soprano in Vienna Boys’ Choir.”
Jonathan forced himself to remain still. “Where do you suppose we are?”
“No idea, Gospodin Orbital, but we are still breathing air, so I would say we are in good shape. Ah, there she is. I will reach past to cut sack behind you. Less wiggling I do with this beauty in hand, the better.”
“Just be careful.”
Gusarov reached his arms around Jonathan as if embracing him. “We might want to leave this part out when we are telling everyone about dashing escape, da?”
“My lips are sealed.”
The fabric behin
d Jonathan parted and split across his back. A few more cuts from Gusarov’s blade, and Jonathan got his shoulders through the slit. From then, it was only a few moments before both men kicked their way from the sack. They were adrift in a chamber filled with debris, broken equipment, and other sacks.
Jonathan shivered as he wondered how many might hold victims who didn’t get out, and he hoped the Porters weren’t among them. He would never forgive himself if the two men got hurt on his account. “What is this place?”
“Junk storage. Spacers never throw anything away. You toss it out for good and then find you need it week later, with no supply delivery for months. Better to hang onto it all.”
Jonathan took inventory of what he had lost to the muggers. They’d taken his checkbook, of course, and several hundred dollars in cash he’d kept in another pocket. They’d also taken his expensive brass goggles and his magnetic boots. At least, they’d left his coat, so he wouldn’t freeze. He didn’t have high hopes for his stocking feet, which were already throbbing from the cold. “How are we going to get out of here?”
Gusarov looked around the room. “We can climb walls if we push off each other.”
The two men clasped hands and Jonathan worked himself into the position described by Gusarov: feet against his legs, bent into a crouching position, clasping hands.
“All right, now what?”
“On three, push off hard as you can. Mind your head, though. One, two, three!”
Jonathan pushed off from Gusarov, and the two men flew apart. Jonathan tried to twist in mid-air, but still wound up smashing his shoulder against a bulkhead before his fingers found a conduit to grab. Despite the pain in his arm and his throbbing head, he felt better about having something solid within reach. Gusarov’s brief lesson aboard Pinnacle Station would have to serve him to move through the Albatross.
“What is next move?” Gusarov had fetched up against a bulkhead support.
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