Mechanicals

by Jordan Stratford

  Walking gave her a map of Paris in her head, and certain landmarks continuously oriented her. But here the streets were narrow and curving, recurving on themselves, and while the odd sign assured her she was in the VIe arrondissement, she had no expectations to stumble upon the twin-towered, double stack of columns before her.

  “Where are we?” Eleanor asked.

  “Saint Sulspice. de Sade was baptized here, you know. It’s quite notorious. There’s someone we are here to meet,” and he went through the narrow metal door. She followed.

  This was a side entrance; to her left was a small chapel, and to the right a great stair. Through another set of doors was the inside of the great church itself and its soaring excess of marble and stone. Inset to the floor at an odd angle was a bead or rail of brass, terminating in a white obelisk. There were a few old women in chairs, racks of flickering candles in red glass nested in alcoves; but in the hours after Mass, the place was largely deserted. She found herself alone, Avery having slunk off somewhere. She crossed herself, as Avery had asked her to develop as a reflex, and stepped back into the foyer through which she had entered.

  Eleanor tilted her head up the stair, craning her neck back to take in the loft of the architecture. No sound descended, but behind her, in the small chapel, was the scrape of a chair.

  Avery was seated next to a plump, elderly woman, wrapped in a shawl. Aside from the two of them, there was no one in the modest sanctuary. She could hear Avery whispering to the woman in French, but could make out no words. Feeling unintimidated by Avery’s companion, Eleanor approached the small pew and sat down next to the priest.

  “Bonjour,” she said brightly.

  The elderly woman smiled but did not reply. Avery raised an eyebrow, but did not seem to object to her presence.

  “Ah, please allow me. Eleanor, this is Monsieur Victor Hugo. Monsieur, may I present my niece, Eleanor.”

  She thought Avery had finally cracked. He had just introduced this round and cheerful grandmother as a noted gentleman of letters.

  “Eleanor. Delighted to meet you,” acknowledged the old woman. Just then, while the twinkle in the eyes remained, the rest of the woman’s face began to soften, to blur. Her grey hair became blonder, longer, and the nose softer, the mouth wide above a double chin. She was now looking at the face of a man, perhaps fifty.

  “It’s a trick,” gasped Eleanor.

  “Of course it’s a trick, mademoiselle,” said the woman-now-man, “and an extremely useful one.” The voice was low, confident.

  “Mr. Hugo,” explained Avery, “is the head of our Order, currently residing in Guernsey.”

  “Exiled, to be honest. I’m afraid my positions are not particularly popular with Napoleon the Third.” Hugo’s voice was low, his accent thick.

  Eleanor tried to gather her wits. “But it must be extremely dangerous for you to be here.”

  “Exactement, Mademoiselle, which is why I am not...here.” Hugo was enigmatic. It was only then that Eleanor realized the clothes had changed as well as the face and body. Hugo wore a loose, soft jacket of dark grey, a white shirt open at the neck, and a broad, eccentrically-knotted tie.

  Again Avery interjected to explain. “Madame Rossignol here is an extraordinarily talented medium. It is through her that we are able to meet Mr. Hugo in person, despite the current, unfortunate circumstances.”

  “But why?” asked Eleanor. “I don’t understand. We took an airship. We could have gone to Guernsey.”

  “My dear,” continued Hugo, “you’ll discover I am more closely watched where I am than where I am not. Besides, is it not appropriate? Adéle and I were married here. And New France was first conceived, or conspired,” at this he smiled broadly, “in this very room, some three centuries past. We have met on such business in this place for some time now. And perhaps when you have reached our age,” implying here both his own and that of Madame Rossignol, “you will fully understand the importance of Tradition.”

  “Monsieur,” interjected Avery, “and I do not wish to rush you, but it does seem that circumstances are accelerating. Britain has declared an ultimatum for Russia to abandon Romania. The Royal Navy prepares to depart, and both France and England have drawn up declarations of war.”

  “I fear it is too late to prevent war,” sighed Hugo, “and an alliance between France and England makes my position here tenuous. But perhaps we can address the cause, and heal the wound of which this war is merely a symptom.”

  “Jerusalem,” added Avery, grimly.

  “Jerusalem. And then, I think, to Constantinople. You can telegraph Madame Rossignol when you arrive, and I’ll be sure to receive the message. But tell me, has our Russian friend put in an appearance?”

  Avery blanched. “Not as yet, but I fear he’ll make his presence known soon enough. From such communication we shall discover which side of the fence he has chosen, as it were.”

  Hugo’s face blurred for an instant, and was again sharp as a daguerrotype. He nodded, considering Avery’s news.

  “I do not wish to unduly burden my gracious hostess, although I admit that I am... homesick, for this place. And to you my brother I wish you every success in this endeavor. I cannot say what is to be done, but we must be present, and witness, and assist where we may be able. And to you, young lady,” turning to Eleanor, “it has been a pleasure. Your uncle has consistently exquisite taste in nieces.” Hugo took his hand in hers and kissed it.

  When the kiss withdrew, it was the kindly Madame Rossignol who held Eleanor’s hand. Madame Rossignol smiled, and nodded deeply. Avery whispered to her that she must be tired, and rising, he bowed to gently hold the dear lady’s head in his hands, and kissed her forehead.

  TEN

  Billings had been on enough sailing ships to know how to stay the hell out of the way, but after the porter awoke with a tray of breakfast and coffee, he thought to explore the ship as best he was able. He had seen no passengers save himself and Colt, and aside from the Negro porter, the sparse crew sightings were hurried affairs with barely time for eye contact, and no words spoken.

  Mindful of Colt’s instructions to remain armed, Billings had risen, washed, dressed, and strapped on the stiff gun-belt. He decided against his hat, but found his coat, tugging his lapels on the way to the library, and the large window. Again he was struck with the idea that he had been granted the eyes of the Almighty.

  They were easily a thousand feet up, if yesterdays three hundred had been any indication of scale. But the terrain here was dun, rocky, with scrags of stone jutting up from the earth as if rejected from the plain of ground. Here and there great swaths of green, and rivers which wriggled their way through the hills like earthworms, looping and almost doubling back on themselves. He had never seen anything so wild, so borderless, save the ocean.

  When the porter appeared at his elbow and asked if the gentleman would like to see outside, Billings’ first reaction was to laugh. His second was a gut-fear, as though he was about to be thrown overboard.

  Five minutes later, a ludicrously thick greatcoat of pristine camel was cast about Billings. The coat was cinched with a broad leather strap, which clipped to a steel cable, and that to another, running the length of the deck. The door had near leapt from its hinges on opening, the wind a banshee tearing at his exposed face and fingers, wrenching tears from his eyes. But the steady hand of the porter had wrestled the door, clipped Billings securely to lifeline, and left him to the elements. Squinting, he pulled down the brass and leather goggles strapped to his head and adjusted them around his sockets. His numbing fingers discovered arrays of lenses, some for magnification almost as good as binoculars, others tinted for protection from glare. His hands dug deep into the coat’s sheltering pockets.

  Should he sing? Should he pray? His was a mixture of elation and fear. He had been told that they were on the far fringes of the Nebraska Territory. Billings peered westward scanning for the Colorado, but the horizon had yet to offer it. Regardless, he had, he was sure,
come farther and faster than anyone on earth, save from Colt, the Negro porter, and the half-seen scurrying crew.

  His knees buckled. A gust of wind? No, the descent, while rough at first, seemed controlled. His head swam at the thought of the approaching ground. They were spending altitude at what seemed to him an alarming rate, and he feared the jagged, unforgiving terrain below as though it were a row of Cyclopean teeth.

  Finally, this was too much, and if he was going to be dashed to bits he was going to do it with a drink in his hand. He groped along the exterior bulkhead, found the door handle, and gripped it deathtight while he unhooked the lifeline. He pulled the door open, and sought the warmth and wood of the cabin’s welcome. Shutting the door behind him, his face began to thaw, although a sick feeling came over him from his thighs to his chest. The interior seemed ordinary enough, though, of course, lavishly appointed with wicker chaises and stained glass lamps. An opulent, yet wholly mundane, environ. It just shouldn’t all be moving, in a piece.

  A short, dark-haired crewman passed by. “You’ll be wanting to tie your ass to an anchor, sir, at present. We’re comin’ up a might fast on some soil.”

  “What’s wrong?” Billings asked, shedding the greatcoat and keeping one hand to the hall’s brass rail.

  “Boiler’s thirsty, s’all. We’ve thrown a hook down and’ll just drag along till she finds somethin’ to grab on to. When she does, she’ll buck mightily. A fellah’s likely to get addled if he ain’t situated.”

  Billings groped around to the library, while the crewman found a ladder and a hatch. Crystal decanters on the small bar were chattering for attention, and needed seeing to. Billings was happy to oblige. Planted, bourbon in one hand and a stout, bolted plant-stand in the other, Billings felt prepared for the coming eventuality.

  He wasn’t. As the airship’s ground-hook caught hold of unlucky tree or crag, her nose tilted sharply up, sending the newly-attended-to bourbon down Billings’ shirtfront, and jarring the shoulder of the arm attached to the hand affixed to the plant-stand. But that did seem to be the end of it – one shock of arrest, and then a subtle acquiescence to the airships circumstance as kite on a string.

  Only in the change of the engines tone was Billings now are of it. Gears had switched from chopping the air into circles via propeller now turned the wheel of the anchor chain, stuttering as each link aligned into place. Billing felt the pressure behind his ears change as the great airship was drawing itself towards the brown and grey scrubland beneath them. He could see they were scarcely thirty feet off the ground, but that final descent affected him more viscerally than the previous, abstract altitude.

  The inevitable bump came softly, moreso than expected. More ratcheting and clanging could be heard about the ship, and the unmistakeable – yet entirely incongruous – sound of horseshoes.

  Colt appeared at the library door. “I heard you went out for a stroll,” he grinned.

  “Thought I’d come back in and die in comfort, given the option.”

  Colt laughed at this, his mood light. “Come downstairs and watch this operation, Mr. Billings. I think you’d enjoy it, and you can stretch your legs properly.” He disappeared around the doorway. Billings rose to follow, now aware of the sticky spill of whiskey on his clothing.

  Around the corner he saw his employer descending a ladder into the mouth of an open hatch. Billings, his legs unsteady against the still swaying floor, groped towards the ladder.

  He was in a narrow metal carriage below the airship, and was at a loss as to how he had failed to notice it before: The craft was grounded as he boarded, after all. The aft of the compartment was occupied by a crewman leading a horse on a ramp that lead up to the main decks. Another horse followed immediately behind.

  The broad side hatch opened, the width of a barn door, and two more crewmen squeezed by with a ridged metal plate the size of a dining table. With a clang, the plate now served as a ramp, and a beaming Colt gestured Billings to debark.

  The secretary’s flat soled shoes practically slid him down the ramp, but the crunch of gravel underfoot was not as reassuring as he’d hoped. The earth failed to sway like an airship, and after only a single day aboard Colt felt out of his element, or between them. He strode away, hoping that his rubbery gait wasn’t too obvious. Colt followed.

  “The Utah Territory, Mr. Billings! Thirty hours from Syracuse, New York. It’s a goddamn marvel, is what it is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go piss on a tree.”

  The horses descended the ramp reluctantly. A rig was worked up between them, with ropes attaching the team to the metal exterior of the carriage. The ramp disappeared into the body of the airship as Colt returned from relieving himself, the ground anchor in chain having already been withdrawn.

  Billings gestured. “They’re leaving without us, looks like.”

  Colt smirked. “We’re just taking her for a little walk. Overshot by a quarter mile, but the river is just over there. Thought we might talk for a bit.”

  “Yes, sir.” Billings felt his land-legs returning as they walked towards the horses. The team had begun pulling to the north, and the airship lazily followed. It was almost comical how two horses could draw such a monster, that even now cast a vast shadow on the desert.

  “You’re noting all of this, I presume, Mr. Billings?”

  “Uh, yessir. It’s kind of a compulsion, you might say.”

  “Good, good. This is history, Billings. When we reach San Francisco, you can file your story.”

  “With whom, sir?”

  “Pick a paper, son. Pick a paper. I aim to cross the continent in under sixty hours; closer to fifty, if we keep this wind up. You leave the cargo out of the story, I’ll leave the ramifications up to the Army’s imagination.”

  “Ever met anyone in the Army, Mr. Colt?”

  “I take your meaning, son. But they’ll get ‘big’ and ‘fast’ and take what they will from that.”

  The men found themselves squinting in the sudden light and heat, as the shadow of the Celerity briefly escaped them. They quickened their pace to the welcome cool.

  The horses finally hauled the ship to a narrow river. The ground-hook had reappeared, secured to a boulder by an enormous chain. Crewmen from the airship dropped a massive gutta percha hose from the vessel’s bowels. The hose for the most part found its mark in the water, sending up a great plume which sparkled for an instant in the desert sun. The hose mouth lay ashore, and the two crewmen wrestled the elephantine tube into the river with some effort, the ships engines already having engaged the pump.

  This, Billings was reminded, was the birth of steam-power; operating water pumps to keep coal mines for flooding. So the engines allowed men to dig deeper for coal, needed to fuel the engines to pump the water in the search of yet more coal. Whale oil could never fuel the new engines of industry, and it remained to be seen if rock-oil could be harnessed, as the Poles were reportedly attempting. Billings remembered his question from earlier.

  “Sir, how come I didn’t see this under-carriage before, when we landed?”

  Colt beamed, as he did whenever he could show off an aspect of the airship. “Decking, Mr. Billings. In Syracuse we walked out onto a boardwalk, straight into the passenger deck. There’s a groove in the ground, and below the walkway, there’s a whole warehouse down there, goes straight from the undercarriage into the ship. Building a similar facility in Baltimore, and in turn, San Francisco.”

  “And hence our business there,” guessed Billings. “Apart from, I assume, the fame of the journey itself.”

  “No, that’s all arranged. This next leg’s what you might call a...diplomatic mission.” Colt looked at the ship, drifting somewhat due to slack in the sheets. “Hey!” he called. “You there!” and trotted off to bark directions at the crew. Billings turned back towards the desert.

  It struck him now as beautiful in a way it hadn’t from the air. Here were glints of what looked like glass in the rock. The dusty brown was now a subtle play of amb
ers and ochre, even purple. The blue of the sky was not as merciless here, but somehow more constant and more comforting, as though it were happier above Billings than around him.

  The woman. Billings had been looking at her, not seeing her. Her skin was beautiful, her hair black. Perhaps thirty, she wore a dress of some pale hide, with delicate blue beads, and she was staring directly at him. He scratched his brains to think of who her people would be, Shoshone or Cheyenne, Ute maybe, or Navajo, if they were that far south. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, but the Rocky Mountains rose to the West, and the South. Unless he was completely turned around. He blinked away the maps in his head, and she remained there, stock still, and calm. He was suddenly self-conscious, tipping his hat and patting himself down for his pipe.

  “Ma’am.”

  She didn’t respond. It took a second for him to accurately track her gaze, to the gargantuan dirigible above and behind him. Of course. He had enough difficulty wrapping his head around it; such a phenomenon had no root in her world.

  “That’s...uh...that’d be our airship, ma’am.” He had no idea if she spoke English. “We’re just giving her some water. For the boilers. For the...for the engines. Ma’am. Then we’ll be on our way.” He smiled awkwardly and took a deferential step backward, unsure as to why he was babbling like an idiot. She responded with a half smile, but remained motionless.

  “Mr. Billings!” called Colt from the horses. Billings turned. The great hose was restored to the ship, and the steel ramp replaced to the ground. The horses were being removed from their yokes, and two more crewmen disembarked to free the anchor.