“I would if I could, but the good doctor would never hear of it.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“Oh, he’ll know. There’ll be little birds aplenty to tell on me, rest assured.” He pantomimed birds twittering about his head. The significance was clear.
A man like van den Bosch had spies on this station, reporting anything and everything. Moving about here would be more difficult than Annabelle had originally believed. Spies would not so easily warm to fluttering eyelashes or fawning compliments. She would have to be more subtle if she was going to have her way. Mother would approve.
Chapter Eight
“A Study in Sawdust”
1.
A group of workers passed by, most of them on the way to the galley for dinner. Dolan seemed to know them all, calling them by name and speaking a word or two, usually in jest. The men responded in kind. This happened twice before Dolan stopped another Irishman on some matter that made no sense to Annabelle.
Her mind wandered. As it did, so did her attentions. Three men were coming her way. Two of them had dollies laden with wooden crates. What they might contain, one could only guess. Probably more polished stone tiles for the mosaic she had seen earlier, the one in the Starward Observation that appeared to be of the inner planets. Or perhaps the crates held more of the ghastly African and Oriental statuettes she had seen everywhere. This Professor Wren had been quite certain in his artistic principles, contrasting glory and doom with such artfulness. But with the long shadows, doom was certainly winning. Surely if the aether had weather, Peregrine would be eternally shrouded in deadly thunderstorms and moonless nights.
Another man followed closely behind the two with the dollies. He was a short fellow, soft around the middle, with curly hair the colour of beach sand. His face was a permanent red, a trait common in men with such fair complexion. Dolan paused and nodded to the first two men, but his attention reverted to his conversation with the Irishman when the third fellow passed. As he came into full view Annabelle saw that the front of his blue coveralls was flecked with pieces of white grit. She peered closer, yet tried not to stare. Sawdust?
Dolan finished his conversation, and apologised as they continued on their way. Annabelle cast a single glance over her shoulder, just in time to see the sandy-haired man duck around a corner.
“Dolan, I know this is a strange question, but must this station be kept so clean?”
“Yes, it’s essential. Professor Wren designed the rudiments of a system that cleans the air of dust and such, but it’s every man’s responsibility to maintain cleanliness at all times.” He chuckled. “You ought to hear the grumbling at how often the men are required to bathe. It’s like they’re being asked to strip off their hide.”
They arrived at her quarters. Dolan felt along the art-free wall until he found a slight impression. Pressing it, the mechanism clacked, and the door slid open, revealing Annabelle’s quarters.
“So why this concern over cleanliness?” he asked.
Annabelle smiled. “No reason.”
Dolan smiled for the thousandth time and said, “You’re an odd one, Miss Somerset, but just what the doctor ordered for this station. Loaves will be along in a moment to stand guard outside your door.” He gave her a nod to go with the smile. “Well, good evening, then.”
Dolan left, and Annabelle pretended to enter her quarters and slide the door shut, but rather than let the mechanism engage, she held it a moment, just long enough for Dolan put some distance between himself and her quarters. When she was sure he had gone, she dashed out, following the last route she had seen the sandy-haired man take, nearly colliding with a lean Indian fellow with several pieces of crown moulding thrown over his shoulder. He sucked in breath when he saw her, and dodged out of her path.
“Sorry!” she cried and hurried on her way.
2.
She rounded the corner and left the main corridor. She came to a four-way crossing and arbitrarily chose right. An urgent fear that she was about to lose the sandy-haired man spurred her on, and she broke into a half-run, made difficult by her shoes, which pinched her heels. She kept to the same corridor so she did not get lost. Soon, she caught sight of her man. He was strolling up the main corridor, headed toward British. Nothing in his hands, his posture and overall lack of urgency the very antithesis of the industry the other workers had so far shown, but instead a man trying to appear nonchalant and failing. He stopped once as three fellows were hauling a heavy oaken liquor cabinet past, and he turned to the way they’d come, as if choosing the path at random. Annabelle slowed her pace and began to follow him, twenty or thirty steps behind, careful not to lose him in the throng of workers going to and fro, but keeping enough of a distance to avoid calling attention to herself.
The trip took them deep into British. Just before entering Starward Observation he turned right, went two doors down, and paused before a panel. Annabelle stumbled at the abrupt stop, barely catching herself before a nasty fall. Using the wall she clawed herself back into an upright position, and scampered for safety around the corner. From this vantage point she saw the man pull a piece of cream-coloured paper, folded in thirds, from his coverall. He bent low and slipped this piece of paper beneath. A quick glance over his shoulder almost caught sight of Annabelle, who pulled back just in time to avoid being seen. She waited for a minute before looking around the corner again, her heart beating in her chest. When she finally did so, the man was gone.
She ran in pursuit, turned right (there was no choice, this time), but found, to her dismay, the corridor before her was long, unbroken, and quite empty. The man was gone.
“Damn,” she muttered.
3.
Sawdust.
She had seen a lot of it in Arizona. Uncle Cyrus had moved in many circles, and often found it necessary to employ men with certain expertise in scientific areas that seemed so much more thrilling and violent than her uncle’s madcap inventions. These men and their devices seemed so much earthier, so much more practical than theoretical mathematics and natural philosophy. Such devices attracted that inexplicable wild blood in her, the stuff left over from her hardscrabble life with the Apache, and she’d followed these men about, flirting with them on occasion and otherwise using her wiles to keep herself in their company, learning everything she could.
So, she knew a thing or two about sawdust and its many uses. Like how nitro-glycerine was terribly unstable, and demolitionists were inclined to soak it in sawdust, which helped diminish its instability so it could be transported easier. Sawdust soaked nitro could be packed into sticks of dynamite, and with a few carefully placed charges, you could blow the top off a mountain.
Or blow a heliograph station to Hell and back.
Call it a hunch, but Annabelle was certain she had just seen Nathanial’s would-be killer.
Chapter Nine
“Frustration”
1.
EXCERPT 34.
“Beyond the Inner Worlds: The Journal of Professor Nathanial Stone” (Published July 2011, by Chadwick Press).
Tuesday September 3rd, 1889.
Four days have passed since arriving on Peregrine Station, and I still am no closer to finding the cause of the stabiliser malfunction.
It has taken my host little time to begin stymieing my research. I’m confined to quarters except for necessary things such as to confer with department heads, to eat or bathe, and to meet with van den Bosch himself, which I am required to do before dinner each night. Hell is strictly forbidden, and it is here that the majority of my work is likely to take me. However, Doctor van den Bosch has declared it unsafe, given the presence of the bomber, who has yet to be sighted, much less caught, and because the doctor does not feel it is necessary for me to move about to perform my job. This frustrates me no end. I need to see the machinery, feel it in my hands if possible, and by denying me access he limits my effectiveness. Instead, I receive reports from men who have performed certain inspections in my stead. These
men I do not know nor trust. After all, why should I trust the word of a stonemason who has been sent to study physical condition of a solar boiler? I wonder for the thousandth time why there exists this need for so much secrecy. Is the answer so easy, that van den Bosch is a petty tyrant, or it is it something more? Mysteries abound here, and every question that is answered spawns three more of the same.
The one shining light in all of this has been my nocturnal excursions to Holmes’ quarters. My new friends have made these past few days almost bearable. We gather each evening and partake of the finest liquor I have ever drunk (Arnaud would be most proud of me, I suspect), and some of the finest company I have ever experienced. Not since my days at Oxford have I felt such an easy camaraderie! Provost and Fullbright are thick as thieves, and they possess matching razor wits. Holmes is a pure wonder, a bon vivant locked away in this wretched place. I welcome every delightful story, every anecdote, every witticism and grandiose lie he tells. He is wise, and I have not forgotten that it was he who said van den Bosch and his cronies would hinder my work. He has placed himself and our friends in my service, if necessary. I hope it won’t come to that; I’ve no wish to strain their professional relationships with Dr van den Bosch, given the man’s dire reputation. However, if I make no headway in my formal investigations, I will be forced to accept their help for more clandestine inquiries.
Annabelle has been acting strangely. The morning I began to work on the stabiliser problem, she came to me, asking all manner of odd questions. I fear the dark atmosphere might be straining her nerves already. She asked about Gothic romances, a topic in which I confess little interest, such whimsy is more suited to my dear little brother. She nevertheless began to speak as if I had affirmed a deep love for these books, speaking on their conventions as though we were at a sewing circle. Helpless heroines trapped in dark, frightening men with absolute power over the heroine, dark secrets, and haunted houses. Oh, and secret passages within those houses. Yes, that’s what she was on about the most. Ghosts and secret passages.
“Wouldn’t it be grand if this were such a place, with hidden routes all over the station where one could travel top to bottom, with no other soul ever being the wiser?”
Well, of course there is such a way, and when I mentioned this she shrieked with such force Jasperse crashed into my quarters, rifle at the ready, believing we were somehow under attack.
Naturally, this station was constructed by men, and all parts must be accessible by men if maintenance is to be performed. Furthermore, its inhabitants are in need of breathable air, piped from the greenhouses above. So, naturally, Peregrine has air ducts capable of accommodating a man of average or greater size. Whole networks of them, in fact, exist throughout, allowing for the natural circulation of air from the steam turbines. She begged that I show her what I meant, and I produced the station blueprints just for that purpose. She was pleased at this revelation, and I have not seen her since, though I understand she has since begun giving her guard, the dim-witted Loaves, fits, disappearing for long periods of time while under his care, only to reappear later. I pray that whatever she is doing, that she at least be careful. The bomber is, after all, still roaming about, and capable of cold-blooded murder. I pray for her.
I pray for us all, in fact. As I was returning from Holmes’ quarters last night, there came a slight tremor beneath my feet. A few moments later, there came another, only this one was more distinct…our first encounters with the far edge of the aether vortex. The violence done to this structure shall only get worse. Please, God, don’t let my efforts be in vain.
2.
The room shook. The wineglass holding down the blueprint’s upper left corner began to slosh. Nathanial snatched the glass up before its contents could spill, took a sip, and held it until the shaking subsided.
“They’re coming with more frequency, they are,” Jasperse said. The way he said it, he might have been making an off-hand comment on the weather. He sat on Nathanial’s cot, nursing a mug of beer. Nathanial liked having the man in his company. Jasperse had seen a great many things in his life. Not just war, though the man had seen plenty of that, but he had travelled, too. Coming out into the aether was just another journey for him. Something about his demeanour was soothing to Nathanial’s nerves, which would otherwise be increasingly jangled.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better, I’m afraid,” Nathanial replied.
“It always does, but you’ll uncover the problem, soon enough. You’ll see.”
“I wish I had your confidence.” Nathanial motioned to the stacks of reports on the floor next to his foot. “Nothing in any of these suggest even a rumour of a problem. Normally, this would be cause for celebration, but we know something is not working.”
Nathanial sipped his wine and tried to relax. If he could relax and clear his mind, perhaps a solution might wander in, as had happened in days past when Grant and he were working on the governor. In those days he would often find shade and sit in the dust, drinking water drawn from an artesian well, so crisp and cold it made his throat ache to swallow it, and he would relax. Staring up at the cloudless, azure skies his mind would drift into unrelated fancies. If nothing else, these daydreams were fine ways to pass afternoons where Cyrus was too moody for close company. Annabelle would return from her daily rambles into the desert or mountains, and they would talk until Cyrus would come upon them and scold Annabelle for taking company with a bachelor without a proper chaperone.
Nathaniel downed the last of his wine and set the glass on the floor. The leather satchel containing his books sat near the door. He reached over and rummaged through the bag. His journal was there, of course, and the copy of Conklin’s Atlas of the Worlds which he had procured before leaving for Venus. But neither of these books had the weight he needed.
“Ha!” he exclaimed and pulled out a thick volume, an overview on the principles of thermodynamics, and used it to hold down the corner of the blueprints instead of the glass. “All of this would be easier if Doctor van den Bosch would give me run of the station,” he said, wiping beer foam from his upper lip.
“Yes, but orders are orders,” Jasperse replied. “And I quite agree with the doctor on this point, I do. One attempt has already been made on your life. If you were to go gallivanting across the station, who knows what might happen? At any rate, Dolan’s incompetence is only likely to embolden our mad bomber in the coming days.”
This wasn’t the first time Jasperse had made disparaging remarks about the Irishman, Jasperse’s superior. “You don’t think highly of Mister Dolan, do you?”
Jasperse snorted. “The Army is full of men like him. They get promoted more for the art of their mouths than for any proper distinction. That boy was in the right place at the right time, and he’ll never let the doctor forget this, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, the accident, of course.”
“Accident? Do you mean—ˮ
“Yes. The one what killed that professor fellow.”
“Wren?”
“That’s his name. The doctor was there that day, and Dolan, too.”
“Extraordinary!”
“Well, you don’t think the doctor got in the shape he’s in now by being mauled by Bengal tigers, do you?”
“He was burned?”
“No, I should think it’s something more than that. They say that Wren fellow was set aflame and died of his injuries, but the doctor…he was hurt by something else.”
“Like what?”
Jasperse scratched at a peppery muttonchop. “Something Wren was working on, or so goes the scuttlebutt. The man had some peculiar ideas about the aether. Anyway, old Dolan was right outside the room, grouting that fountain of his, when he heard the commotion. Pulled the doctor out of there before the old man could be consumed, he did. And there hasn’t been a day pass since that he hasn’t reminded everyone of his heroics. It got him his promotion, and he’s done little since because of it except strut a
bout. Peacocks like Dolan get honest men killed.”
“I should like to see this experiment Professor Wren was working on,” Nathanial said. “Once we’ve escaped our current predicament, of course.”
“Little chance of that, I’m afraid,” Jasperse said, shaking his head. “After the accident, they shut the place up tight, with all of Wren’s notes and God only knows what else. Makes one wonder, why build such a lab for the professor. No call for it, really. This station isn’t rated for research of any kind, and it was a waste of resources when everyone knows we’re woefully over budget. Mister Hague, now there’s a small tyrant, has reminded us of that on more than one occasion.” The old guard wagged a finger. “You mark my words, Mister Stone, there’s more going on here than just a heliograph station.”
“Glad to hear you say it, Jasperse. It’s been on my mind lately.” Yes, indeed. He recalled what van den Bosch had told Annabelle over dinner that first night, about the lights once being dim because the energy was being directed elsewhere. But to where? Wren’s lab? It agitated his curiosity just to think of it.
Jasperse, as if sensing Nathanial’s growing pique, continued with his theories. “Oh, there is something going on. Peregrine’s the third station built, and with Venus screaming for theirs. Why build it here? And why all the hush-hush?”
“And the ostentation. What do they hope to gain from making the station so ornate?”
“A museum, is my guess.”
“A museum? That makes sense.”
“Indeed. I’ve heard it said more than once. Mister Salt is constantly on about posterity. The doctor, he sees a time when travel in the aether will be as commonplace as a fellow taking a locomotive or dirigible from London to Brixton. People will come by the dozens to see a magnificent museum, floating freely in space. A hundred years from now, they’ll come by the thousands.” He made a dismissive noise. “It’s all vanity, I say, and vanity devours men like jackals.”
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