by K. G. McAbee
Nathanial jumped and tore his gaze away, shook his head. Strange. It was almost as if he’d been mesmerized by the dense growth.
Giles Jericho trotted towards him along the wide parapet that jutted out near the top of the miles of barricade. “Careful,” he said as he stopped beside Stone, “careful the trees don’t get you enraptured.”
Nathanial laughed, but even he thought it sounded forced. “Whatever can you mean, Jericho? Enraptured?”
“It’s what we call it here on Venus.” Jericho leaned beside him and gestured at the burgeoning plant growth below. “The jungle enraptures some folk. They wander closer, ever closer to it, and finally into it, can’t keep away. Then…”
“Then?”
“Why, they’re never found, old chap,” Jericho said cheerfully. “Eaten up, no doubt, by one of the lizards. Or…or the trees themselves.”
Nathanial laughed. “Now you are hazing the newcomer, are you not, Jericho?”
Jericho smiled. He was a brown-haired, green-eyed young man, considerably shorter than Nathanial’s rangy height, but well-built and stocky. His powerful form was dressed in what Stone had already found was the accepted mufti of Her Majesty’s Colonial Service on Venus: thin cotton shirt, pale linen trousers, waistcoat and bush jacket, and high leather boots, with a pith helmet to top it off.
Stone was dressed in a similar fashion, and he spared a silent thanks to Mrs White and Annabelle, who had shopped for the proper gear and packed it for their trip while they had waited on the arrival of the Aphrodite. He would doubtless have brought his usual serviceable brown broadcloth and he’d be stifling now, or drowning in his own perspiration.
“Is your governor back from this mysterious journey of his, then?” Nathanial asked. They had been at Fort Collingwood for almost a week now, with no sight or sound of Forbes-Hamilton. He was starting to get a bit nervous, especially since Annabelle kept bothering him about a trip into the bush.
“Precisely why I’ve come to fetch you, my dear fellow.” Jericho beamed, the smile lighting up his rather plain features. “Old Forbes-H is back. Seems he heard some balderdash about a sort of Venusian version of liftwood and rushed off to check it out.”
Now this was interesting! “What did he find?” Nathanial asked eagerly.
“Stone! Look about you! Better yet,” Jericho waved his hands in front of his chest in a parting motion, as if he were breast-stroking through water, “feel about you. The air on Venus is so thick, so dense and so bloody damp, do you think anything like the light airy liftwood on Mars could grow here? Oh, I grant you, the Germans have been experimenting in the highest uplands near the South Pole, trying to get liftwood seeds to grow, but it’s been a bust, I’ll warrant. No, Forbes-Hamilton is back, excited you’re here and eager to discuss his problems. I fear you will be asked, nay, begged for your assistance. Will you come?”
The two men trotted down the wide stairway, changing direction at the several switchbacks, and reached the ground at last, just beside one of the seventeen major gates of Fort Collingwood. The huge wall encircled a vast expanse, more than five miles on a side and full of buildings, parade grounds, hangers for airships and the cutters which brought supplies and equipment down from the great aether ships, barracks, plus numerous houses for residents set in burgeoning gardens. The entire fort was a bustling hive of activity, as were the fields outside the walls.
Nathanial followed Jericho to the line of waiting rickshaws near the gate, each pulled by one of the lizard-men indigenous to Venus. Jericho gave an order, “To the floating-bird home.” The men climbed in and the lizard-man started off at an ungainly trot.
“Floating bird home?” Nathanial asked as he gazed about him.
“The skinks don’t speak English well; most of them, anyway,” Jericho said as he waved at an acquaintance, who smiled back. “They have their own names for things and refuse to adopt ours. Which, considering we’re heading towards Aero-hanger B stroke Eleven, isn’t very surprising.”
Nathanial settled back. He had to admit; he was a trifle nervous. As good as he was at aether engines—he had no false modesty about the fact; he was good at them—he had far less experience with helium-hydro airships. He only hoped this wasn’t going to be a wasted trip.
After all he had got Annabelle away from the distractions and lures and dangers of London and into a colonial backwater. Why, she couldn’t even go out of the gates without a pass. What could possibly happen to her here?
It took nearly half an hour by his pocket watch to reach the hanger. He and Jericho got out of the rickshaw, and Jericho tossed the lizard-man a brass coin.
They entered a small door set inside a much larger one and into a huge hanger that seemed almost as dark as night, especially after the brilliant though diffused light of the outside. Nathanial blinked as he walked forward, careful not to bump into the various clutter and piles of engine parts, collapsed airbags and tools that littered the hard-packed dirt floor. He noticed that even here, in the dimness, the aggressive plant life of Venus still tried to carve out a home: rank weeds grew in the hard, oily ground and sinuous vines stretched up the walls wherever a crack allowed them to find a foothold. About halfway into the long, high hanger, Jericho stopped him with a hand on his arm and motioned upwards. Stone gazed up a railed stairway leading to a catwalk; this encircled a small airship floating serenely inside the building, like an egg inside its shell.
Nathanial shook his head in disbelief. Surely he was seeing things? Surely that could not be…please God, say it could not possibly be…
“Miss Somerset!” cried Giles Jericho. He took off his topee and waved it energetically.
Annabelle Somerset leaned precariously over the single, waist-high cable, the only thing keeping one on the high catwalk from toppling off. She waved one hand in obvious excitement.
“There you are at last. Glad you could make it, Nathanial,” she called cheerfully. “Mister Forbes-Hamilton has been showing me the most astonishing things. And what do you suppose? He’s offered to take me up in his beautiful airship!”
“Good lord,” Nathanial muttered under his breath.
“Well, dash it all!” Jericho shook his head. “Your lovely friend has dazzled old F-H. Not surprising; she is quite the most delightful girl. It’s a pity you saw her first, old man, or I’d be in the running in half a tick.”
Nathanial felt his face turn fiery red. “Not…not at all, Jericho. I’m…I mean to say, I am not…you see, her uncle charged me with her protection…and, well…” he sputtered to a stop.
Jericho grinned at him and laid a single finger against his rather large nose. “Of course, my dear fellow. You’re charged with her protection, so you brought her halfway across the System to the most savage of HM’s colonies. I understand; couldn’t be parted from her even for a little while. Say no more, say no more. I understand completely, I do assure you.”
Nathanial really had nothing more he could say. Trying to explain further would be sure to get him into trouble. So he simply began mounting the shaky brass-and-wooden steps up to the catwalk.
At the top, Annabelle met him, her hand on the arm of a short, thin, wiry man with an untidy shock of hair, a wild expression in his dark eyes, and dressed in a stained frock coat with bulging pockets.
“Professor Stone,” he said, holding out his hand while his eyes darted anywhere but to Nathanial’s. “Welcome to Venus! Allow me to say what an honour, indeed, a privilege it is to meet the inventor of the aether propeller governor. The brilliance! Indeed, if I may say so: the genius! I am honoured; we are all honoured, to have you here.”
Nathanial could feel himself blushing yet again. Really, would Annabelle never stop getting him into these things? He had to admit, though, it was not she, not this time, at least not entirely. This strange, excitable man before him was the main cause. And if Forbes-Hamilton could indeed design an airship better than the German zepps, then the trip would certainly be worth his while.
“Not at all,” N
athanial said as he took the proffered hand. “Erm, your ship is a beauty.”
Forbes-Hamilton held onto Stone’s hand as if it were a lifeline as he took a quick glance over his shoulder. When he turned back, Nathanial could detect a look of utter exaltation on his face, gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. He leaned forward, rose up on his toes and spoke directly into Nathanial’s ear. “She is a beauty, isn’t she? And I have added quite a few innovations of my own onto the existing structure. Quite a few indeed.” The inventor drew back but did not release Stone’s hand; instead, he shook it up and down, up and down, until Nathanial began to feel quite giddy with the nervous energy flowing from the man.
“Indeed, Nathanial. You will be astonished.” Annabelle stepped forward and laid her hand on Forbes-Hamilton’s arm. He immediately dropped Stone’s hand and turned away.
She winked at Nathanial and fell in beside him as Forbes-Hamilton led the way to the gangplank. Jericho fell in behind.
Nathanial’s heart sank further and further within him as they approached the airship Forbes-Hamilton so vaingloriously called the Aeronaut III. From a distance, the airship had looked very much like any other on Earth, but as he grew closer, he could begin to pick out a multitude of differences. Instead of a single oblong cigar-shaped airbag, this ship had a series of—he counted silently—five round balloons, all contained within an elaborate crisscrossed netting affair, which seemed to be woven of some local vegetable matter; a thick, fibrous yet porous looking vine. Below the five entrapped bags hung the gondola. Here again, Forbes-Hamilton had departed from the accepted Earth style. Instead of sleek and aerodynamic design, the inventor had gone for a fantastical look. Stone did not approve. There was no place in engineering, in science, for such a ridiculous object. Why, the thing looked like some sort of Viking ship, with its raised prow and stern, and a silly lizard head which, no doubt, was meant to represent some sort of mythological beast, a dragon or wyvern.
As for the state of the thing! The airbags had patches, which were themselves patched, and the ramshackle gondola looked as if it had been knocked about like a cricket ball.
“Ah,” Nathanial said as he gazed up at the thing. “Yes.”
“Isn’t it lovely, Nathanial?” Annabelle’s tone held a warning. “Aren’t you so glad we came? And do think how lucky we shall be to have a ride in it!”
Forbes-Hamilton had his head down but, even so, Stone could tell he was blushing furiously. No wonder! To have called him halfway across the system to this…this…
“Oh, it’s hardly lovely,” Forbes-Hamilton said, twisting one foot like a child in obvious pleasure at Annabelle’s words. “Though, I must admit, it is rather unusual, is it not?” He raised his head and beamed up at the thing as if it were the most beautiful craft imaginable.
“Unusual. Yes, indeed,” Nathanial managed at last. He turned and glared at Jericho, but even that release was denied him, for Jericho was at that moment grinning like an idiot at Annabelle.
Forbes-Hamilton seemed to suddenly come to his senses. “Well, now, let’s go aboard, shall we? Come around to the port side where the gangplank is set up. I’ve got quite a few things to show you, Professor Stone, and I think you will be amazed, I do indeed.”
Somehow, Nathanial doubted it. But he was here, and Annabelle was safe and not too terribly troublesome, so he might as well make the best of things. He followed Forbes-Hamilton around the prow of the risible ship.
For an instant, he was sure he had run into the same dragon whose head adorned the prow of the Aeronaut III.
A massive figure stood at the bottom of the gangplank. It had long muscular arms ending in seven-fingered hands, each finger tipped with an inch-long claw. The legs were bowed, with flat splayed feet, each of the seven toes also tipped with a claw. The barrel-shaped torso was hung and strewn with weapons: a two-foot-long knife hung from a mottled leather belt on the right; on the left hung a bulbous war club with a leather cover; and the handles of two throwing spears projected above the shoulders. A round convex shield leaned against the edge of the gangplank, painted with a grinning face in lurid colours, next to a vulcanised bag with a drawstring top.
But the thing’s head! There was the image, the very mirror image, of the dragon on the prow of the Aeronaut. A long snout ringed with double rows of triangular teeth jutted out from the lumpy cranium. Two small eyes, as green as glass, gleamed beneath spikes. And the most amazing thing of all: a deerstalker hat sat atop this mythological reptile, as though the thing thought it was a character in a Conan Doyle story in the Strand Magazine.
“Ah, Thymon, my dear fellow,” said Forbes-Hamilton as he trotted towards this apparition. “All shipshape and Bristol fashion, I am sure?”
Nathanial watched in amazement as that long, tooth-filled mouth opened and the beast spoke, in a sibilant voice, almost as high-pitched as a young girl’s.
“I hass watched, ssir, and all iss ssafe in the fat rekota.”
“Excellent, excellent,” said the inventor as he bustled past the massive lizard-man as if he were a mere statue instead of, Nathanial thought, a fearsome beast, and looked back over his shoulder after he’d taken two steps. “The rekota, you should understand, is one of the largest flying reptiles on Venus, so naturally that’s how some of the lizard-men refer to my ship. Come along, do; mustn’t dawdle. And don’t mind Thymon. He’s a dear friend of mine. I saved his life when he was wounded by one of the greater sauroids, I believe it was a ferengin, wasn’t it, Thymon?” Without waiting for reply, he went on. “Something huge, anyway, with quite an astonishing number of teeth. You can still see some of the marks here—” he pointed to a long, deep groove in the lizard-man’s right arm, “—and there, on his leg.” Then he waved his arm towards his ship. “If you’ll look there, just by the figurehead on the prow, you can see more marks from a ferengin’s teeth. So, according to the rules of his tribe—the Cherada, don’t you know; they’re the largest and most advanced of any we’ve run across so far, with quite an elaborate set of funerary rituals and a form of rudimentary writing that resembles cuneiform, if you’re interested in such things. But be that as it may: dear old Thymon is firm on the matter, and he has decided he owes me a blood debt. It’s a powerful tradition, don’t you see; can’t be denied. Naturally, I trust him completely; he’s devoted to me, the dear chap.”
Nathanial felt a bit dizzy at this surge of new information. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak…
“How fascinating,” Annabelle breathed as she gazed up the long length of the lizard-man, who towered over her like a giant. Then, to Nathanial’s amazement, and fear, she held out her hand.
Thymon looked down at her, lowering his massive snout like a drawbridge, a quizzical expression in his deep-set eyes. He held out his huge paw and, with the utmost care, gave the top of Annabelle’s small, decidedly grimy hand a delicate tap with one razor-sharp claw.
“Ah, excellent!” said Forbes-Hamilton. “He accepts you. Quite an honour, dear lady. Thymon has been known to, er, be a bit snappish with new acquaintances.”
Nathanial released a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. Annabelle, he feared, was going to be the death of him.
4.
Neuregensburg, a Small German Settlement
Close to the Border of the English Colony
“Get along there, you lousy skinks!” shouted Simon O’Rourke. He slapped his gift from his new employer, a riding crop made of razor-scaled garg leather, against the arm of a sluggish lizard-man. Bright blood, emerald green in the diffused light from the constant cloud cover, welled up and pattered onto the hard-packed ground. The lizard-man gave a sibilant hiss of pain and nearly dropped the heavy pack he was struggling with. Other lizard-men who were dragging crates and boxes up a gangplank and storing them in the hold of the small airship speeded up their work.
O’Rourke watched for a moment. The lizard-men gave him a wide berth, especially the one whose arm was still bleeding, but the loading seemed to be goi
ng well. The Irishman ambled back to the only bit of shade near the airfield.
“You are firm with these creatures. It is good, it is necessary, but the Verdammten Englisch do not recognise that fact.” Oberst Kurt nodded approvingly as he wiped the sweat from his narrow face with a snowy handkerchief. He sat at a small table under a wide overhang outside the zeppelin shed, and the heat was even more intense than usual. “They insist on coddling the creatures, treating them the same way they do their colonials on Earth, and then they are surprised when the beasts turn on them and bite them.”
Kurt tucked his handkerchief back in his sleeve and pulled out a pocket watch. “Another hour and you should be ready. Are your preparations in order?”
O’Rourke nodded. “The location you’ve chosen is perfect, Herr Oberst. The British would murder for the stuff there, and I’ve had all your people moved out and some quiet skinks moved in. It’s a small family group of Lassensee, no more than forty including females and cubs. The Lassensee are passive, unlikely to fight; the other tribes don’t think too much of ’em, if you know what I mean.” The Irishman winked at the German. “Much like you Prussians think of the Bavarians.”
Kurt turned to glare at him. “My uncle married a Bavarian,” he said, his tone icy. “And I believe you mean my plan, not our plan, do you not?”
O’Rourke shrugged. “Yours. Ours. What does it matter, as long as the plan works? But you might just want to consider,” he cocked his head to one side and grinned, white teeth flashing like some feral predator, “that it’s my knowledge and experience that’ll get your plan to succeed. You need someone like me, have needed someone like me for quite a while now, have you not?”
Kurt eyed the Irishman. “And what exactly is ‘someone like you,’ if I may ask? Do you mean someone who is concerned only for himself, who wishes only enrichment and a life of ease, no matter what it costs in the lives of others?”
O’Rourke threw his head back and laughed. The cheerful sound echoed through the dense air, and two of the heavily burdened lizard-men looked curiously about, as if they had never heard such an odd sound before. Since they had been enslaved by the Germans for some time, perhaps they had not.