My new boss is and—oh gosh. All right, I’ll call her P. Does that work? Good. So P. paired me up to work with—uh, I can see a black mark coming—with Mr. D. and Dr. C. for my training. Mr. D. is a good man. He seems to like me quite a bit, and don’t worry—he makes sure I eat. In fact, he eats almost every meal with me. He said that I should write a long letter to you, and would pay for the airmail postage, so that’s what I’m doing. He also said that I should talk a lot about everything that’s going on in order to sort out how I feel about it all because it’ll help. What he means by that, I don’t know.
So on the first day here, I was brought in with a very pretty woman named , who—Hey, come on! She didn’t even join . Why do you have to blank her name out?
. Hey, look—the machine blanks out profanity, too. it all to ! And your auntie while you’re at it. Huh. So much for the saying, “He curses like an airman.”
Right, so —I guess I’ll call her Miss A.—is very pretty, and I like her a lot, Gramps. I wish you were here, because I could really use some advice about her. She’s older than I am—twenty-one or twenty-two—but that’s not the problem. Or I thought it wasn’t. She got off and left when P. offered her a job at . I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it, and, well, it makes me sad that she isn’t here. We kind of went through a lot together. , , . —and I just noticed that you’re not able to read any of this. What’s the point of my talking about this if none of it actually gets down on paper, you stupid ?
That wasn’t a curse word, Gramps.
Anyway, she left, and I was upset about it. I didn’t know what to do. You don’t have the chance to talk to a lot of women on an airship, and I have no idea what to do. Should I run after her or write to her or just leave her alone? If you can write back and tell me, man to man, it would help.
Next, Mr. D. took me upstairs to show me the dormitory where I’d be staying. I have a room to myself! I have a bed, not a hammock, with a mattress, and fresh sheets every week, and a wool blanket. There’s a bookshelf for my things, when I get some, and a desk where I can read. It even has a radiator, and I can make the room as warm as I want just by twisting a knob. You’d like this place. I wish you could see it.
Mr. D. gave me a tour. This place is huge, Gramps, and always busy. People are running up and down the halls all the time, and going in and out of and puzzling out clockworker inventions. The place has huge kitchens to feed everyone and a research library and a conservatory and a lot of other stuff you’d find in a school or college.
After that, Mr. D. took me to a shop because I didn’t have any clothes. He said would pay for it at first and then I could pay them back. We went to his tailor, who owns a big shop and does a lot of work for . This tall, thin man with a white fringe of hair came out from behind a counter, smiling and nodding like I was royalty, and measured me up, down, and sideways. I almost socked him when he measured one part that Mr. D. said was just my inseam. He—I—ordered shirts, jackets, and trousers. It felt strange. I’ve never owned so many clothes before. We ordered different kinds of clothes, too—workman’s clothes and farmer’s clothes and servant’s clothes. They’re for when I , which I apparently can’t talk about, either. They also had leather outfits like the ones I used to wear on the ship, but they were all black instead of white. Some of the stuff, including the leathers, happened to fit or they were tailored on the spot and I could take them back with me. Actually, Mr. D. told them to deliver it all, and I felt strange about that, too—no one’s ever fetched or carried for me before. Mr. D. said I look really good in black, and I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not—all the men at wear black. Mr. D. gives me a lot of compliments, and I guess I’m not used to that.
Mr. D. had me put on one set of my new clothes—they itched a little—and we got into a cab. I thought we were going back to the . . . back to where I work now. But we went a different way.
London is like Boston in some ways, Gramps. They’re both busy all the time. The streets are crowded with people and horses and wagons and carriages. The smells change every few feet—bread or manure or cloth or flowers or just people. Voices shout and yell. Vendors sell anything you need, and there are lots of offering up—Oh, come on! Gramps lived in the part of Boston his whole life! He knows what a is.
Fine. Anyway, half the city is being built up to the sky, and the other half is being dug down under the ground. Everything is dust or rain or mud. It’s depressing. And the fog! You can slice it up and eat it for dinner.
Something happier to talk about: They gave me a piece of my salary, but I don’t need much because I live at work, so I’m sending you some. You can buy medicine. And get Ma a new dress, all right? Or maybe you can send Patrick to school with some of it. Tell him his big brother is still watching over him.
Anyway, I was saying that Mr. D. had the cabbie drive us to his men’s club for lunch.
I’ve never been in a club. I tried to act as if I knew everything, but to tell the truth, I was scared I’d make a mistake and they’d throw me out. The club looks like an ordinary brownstone house, except on the door hangs a brass plaque that reads THE E CONSTANT CLUB. Mr. D. says the name is a joke, but I don’t get it.
We went inside. It was red wallpaper and rugs with designs and heavy furniture and bookshelves and big rooms with men smoking everywhere. Mr. D. introduced me around, then took me to the dining room. The tables were set with crystal and china and silver. I was really nervous now. I’d never eaten in such a fine place. Mr. D. ordered food for both of us, and then a little trolley walked up to our table with a champagne bottle in a silver ice bucket on it. Two mechanical arms from the trolley popped the bottle and poured us each a glass.
“We have to celebrate,” Mr. D. said.
I thought he meant we had to celebrate me joining , and I felt kind of excited—I’d never had champagne before, or anything worth drinking champagne about—but instead, Mr. D. raised his glass and said, “May you live a hundred years, Gavin, with one extra year to repent!”
And then I remembered it was my eighteenth birthday. I’d completely forgotten. I would have made airman today. The entire crew would have made a double line on deck beneath the envelope, and I would have run down the middle while they swatted me with wooden paddles. Captain Naismith and Pilot would have greeted me at the end of the line, pulled off my cabin boy leathers and boots, and thrown them overboard. Then I would have had to climb the netting, barefoot and in my underwear, to the highest part of the envelope, where the newest airman—that would have been Tom—would be waiting with my new boots and leathers, the ones with wings on the lapel. Once I put them on, I would have climbed back down to the rest of the crew, who would cheer and feed me bread, salt, and beer. “Go up a boy; come down a man.” Then there would be a party.
Instead, I was sitting in a strange club with a man I’d met only a few hours before, holding a glass of champagne, and seeing my shock reflected in a cold bucket made of silver. I wondered if they had champagne in heaven for Tom and Captain Naismith. It wouldn’t be fair if I had it and they didn’t.
Mr. D. must have seen my face, because he put his glass down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Is your birthday a bad thing?”
“No,” I hurried to say. “I’m sorry. Thank you.” I raised my glass to him and sipped. It was like drinking sour air. “It’d just slipped away from me, with all that’s happened. I’m fine.”
“We’ll get some food in you and you’ll be right as rain, eh?” Mr. D. said cheerfully. He didn’t want to see me upset, and I didn’t want to look upset. So I nodded.
Our lunch arrived. It was some kind of chopped chicken with vegetables over mashed potatoes, but done up fancy. For dessert, the waiter brought ice cream and a small chocolate cake. I liked that and thanked Mr. D. , and he looked happy.
“Once you’re more established, we’ll have to sponsor you for membership here,” he said.
“Do you think Miss A. has a club?” I blurted out.
“I wouldn’t know.” He lit a cigar and offered me one, but I thought about Captain Naismith and turned it down. “You have your eye on her, do you?”
“Um . . .” was all I could say.
He muttered something that sounded like “” around his cigar. “We can’t force her to join us, you know.”
“I know. I was just surprised she didn’t.” I glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. “I think I have training soon. Should we go?”
“Of course, of course.” Mr. D. signed the check and we left. A few minutes later, we were back at headquarters, and I was in combat class, learning how to fight and trying not to think about Miss A.
P. teaches the combat class herself. I guess she used to teach a lot of classes, but now that she’s a , she only has time for combat.
I have to tell you, Gramps, P. may be a woman, but she scares the out of me. She has only one , and she wears a special on her , and she has this way of looking at you as if you had no skin.
There were six of us in the class—four men and two women. We were all wearing something like black swim outfits. The women’s had skirts attached. P wore a plain version of her uniform—no medals or epaulets to grab. I was the newest student, but I’d be fine—I knew how to fight. , I’d survived an attack by ing pirates.
The class took place in an echoing gymnasium with mattresses on the floor. Everyone stood in a circle, and P. called me into the middle to face her.
“Show me what you can do, Gavin,” P. said.
I eyed her right arm, the one.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I won’t cheat. Though eventually you’ll have to learn how to fight me—or someone like me.”
“Are we fighting fair or are we fighting to win?” I asked.
“Good question,” she said with approval. “In , we fight to win. In this class, though, we don’t want anyone to get hurt. Even our doctors can only do so much.”
“Got it. Then let’s—” I faked a swing at her face, then punched her stomach. Or tried to. She blocked me, and then I was flat on a mattress with her fist an inch from my nose.
“Good,” she said, and hauled me to my feet with easy strength. The other students were grinning. “Nice attempt at distraction, decent reflexes. Try again.”
“How did you do that?” I asked instead. “Show me.”
“Try again, Gavin.”
“Sorry.” I punched; she swept my hand aside. I tried again and again and again, but I couldn’t touch her. Soon I was panting and sweaty, but she was unruffled.
“Not bad,” she said. “You fight like a pirate and have some bad habits, but we can work on that. What weapons can you use?”
“Uh...cutlass, belaying pin, flechette pistol.”
“Handy. Rifle?”
I shook my head. “You don’t use anything that sparks on an airship unless you’re deadly stupid.”
“Right. Bernard, I want you to take Gavin through some basics of self-defense, better than what a pirate learns. Everyone else, pair off for sparring.”
Bernard, a brown-haired man about ten years older than me, came forward, but I turned back to P. “Ma’am,” I said. She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not a pirate. I’m an airman. There’s a difference.”
She gave me a long look, then said, “Noted. Now learn, Gavin.”
And I did. I thought I knew something about fighting, but it turns out I didn’t know anything. uses boxing techniques from China, and they’re nothing like anything you learn on an airship. It was an entirely different way to move. A different way to think. And you have to shout every time you do something. It’s strange, but it works.
After that, I changed clothes and met Mr. D. and Dr. C. down in Dr. C. ’s laboratory. He’s a , and he has a special alloy that can if you pump through it. He also discovered that sound travels in waves like ripples across a pond. He’s even figured out how to measure sound waves—and change them. So he’s supposed to train me in music.
At first, I didn’t think there’d be much he could teach me, but after that fight class, I wasn’t so sure. Turned out I was right. I know a lot about “practical application,” as Dr. Clef calls it, but I don’t know much about music theory, and that’s what he’s teaching me. A lot of it is giving names and numbers to what I know by instinct. Dr. C. says we’re taming my music.
But I really miss flying, Gramps. It’s been weeks, but I jerk awake mornings, and my back aches and I can hear the sky calling like a song I can only half hear, and it hurts. On those mornings, gravity pulls down every note I play, and I swear they shatter on the floor. Dr. C. throws up his hands. “Ach!” he shouts. “You have the hands of a brick! Go away before you break my ears!”
This letter is getting long. Tell everyone I love them. I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit again, but remember that I’m safe and I’m doing fine.
Love to all,
Gavin
PART II
Chapter Ten
The music box clinked through another uniform round of music. Alice put down her teacup and smiled across the breakfast tray at Norbert, who was skimming the Times, freshly ironed by one of the automaton maids. “Anything interesting?” she asked.
“The uprising in India has finally been put down,” he said. “Maybe now Lord Elgin will get enough men to put the coolies in their place. Some are wondering if this will be another war over opium.”
“One can hardly blame the Chinese for their anger,” Alice said as Kemp refilled her cup. “As I recall, the Treaty of Nanking forced them to pay enormous sums of money to England and make a number of trade concessions while England gave virtually nothing in return.”
“It only means one thing.” Norbert set the paper aside and picked up his own cup. “More demand for weapons. I might expand the factory in that direction. Good news for us, eh?”
They were sitting in the morning room in Norbert’s enormous house in London eleven months after their engagement. The windows were shut against a dreary April sky, but a shared breakfast tray on a small table between them sent up smells of fresh bread, butter, sausage, tea, and chocolate. Norbert sipped the latter. The breakfast menu always remained the same. The one day when Alice had suggested they have something besides bread and sausage, Norbert’s face had turned bright red and his hands had shaken. Alice quickly retracted her suggestion, and he returned to normal.
In the last several months, Alice had learned that all of Norbert’s habits were exact and regular. Every morning when she arrived at his house for their customary breakfast together, she found him bathed and fully dressed in the same cut of business suit. He greeted her with the same “Good morning, my darling,” gave her the same kiss on the cheek, and seated her at the same chair at the same table in the morning room. The music box she had pretended to admire on the day he had more or less proposed to her played the same songs quietly through the meal. He read the front page and business sections of the London Times while they ate, commented on one or two stories, and was ready for the day at 7:20. He would return by eight o’clock, when supper was to be served.
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, Norbert brought flowers, chocolates, or some other gift for her. After supper, he gave her the same cheek kiss and bid her the same good-bye. If she hadn’t seen Norbert accidentally cut himself with a fish knife once, she would have suspected he was some kind of extremely advanced automaton.
As for Alice herself, Norbert had moved her to a much nicer flat within walking distance of Norbert’s house. Since he owned the flats, Alice could stay rent-free. Alice also noticed her father’s creditors had stopped calling. A secret look through the ledgers told her that Norbert had paid the worst of Father’s debts, but he still owed more than ten times the annual salary Alice had been offered by the Third Ward. This problem, of course, would evaporate the moment Alice said, “I do.”
Alice passed the majority of her days in Norbert’s house, ostensibly to take care of her father, and she did spend a fair amount of time doing just
that, of course. After Norbert had announced their engagement in the Times, he had offered to move Arthur out of that run-down residence and into Norbert’s own home, where he would be warm and the resident automatons could see to his needs with tireless attention to detail, since Alice couldn’t provide round-the-clock care even in her own flat, and a hospital was out of the question. Alice, naturally, could not fully move in with Norbert. That would be far from proper. However, her father provided a built-in chaperone, which meant she could visit at any time, even if Father spent the entire visit shut up in his room with the heat on. As long as the proprieties were observed, society would approve.
This is what you wanted, she told herself. Father’s debts are paid, he’s happy you’re “taken care of,” he spends his remaining days in a suite of his own, and you... you have a wealthy, traditional husband—or you will very soon. Thousands of women would tread hot coals to trade places with you. You’ve won.
So why did it feel so much like losing?
Norbert swallowed the last of his chocolate, set his cup on the saucer with a clink, and checked his watch. “Nearly time,” he said. “Have you finished going through the household accounts?”
Alice nodded. One of her duties as Norbert’s wife would be to keep track of domestic finances. The staggering sums she was to oversee had come as a bit of a shock. “I think I can keep the house’s books without trouble.”
“You’re very quick,” Norbert said, clearly pleased. “This evening, then, I’ll show you the other task I’ll need you to take on after we’re married. It’s hard to believe the wedding’s less than three months away.”
“What task is that?” Alice asked.
“No time to explain it now,” he said, rising. “I’ll be late. You’re beautiful.” He kissed her on the cheek and left exactly on time.
“Louisa Creek to see you, Madam,” said Kemp.
Alice all but leapt to her feet. “Don’t keep her standing in the hall, Kemp. Show her in!”
The Doomsday Vault Page 17