“I’ve been having a talk with young Mr. Berliss, here,” Admiral Daughton said. “We’ve decided it best that he parts ways with us.”
Cross looked to Ikey and cocked an eyebrow. “That true?”
The morning’s pie sat uneasy in Ikey’s stomach. He wanted to sit before it wound up on the tops of his boots. Instead, he looked at the space between himself and Cross and wished for a lapse of light; enough dark to feel safe, to feel Rose’s presence.
Admiral Daughton cleared his throat. “It’s true—”
“It’s not,” Ikey said as he looked back up at Cross. “He’s firing me because I was doing what you said. I was down here building bunks with Sharp like—”
“That’s enough!” Admiral Daughton bellowed. His face flashed to red. He jabbed a finger at Ikey. “Not another word from you. Or you,” he said as he turned to Cross.
Cross folded his arms over his chest.
“He’s finished. I want him off this site now.”
“I’m not done with him,” Cross said.
Admiral Daughton took half a step back. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, I’m not done with the lad.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“That’s right. You sure as hell didn’t,” Cross said. “I’m foreman on this project, and I’m telling you he stays. Got it?”
Admiral Daughton jabbed his blunt finger into his own chest. “And I’m the foreman’s boss. Unless you both want to be in search of new employment—”
“Cut the bunkum, man. I’m telling you that he stays until I dismiss him. And we’ll leave it at that, shall we? Or do you really want to discuss why?”
A shade of color dropped from Admiral’s Daughton’s visage. He reached inside his coat and produced a handkerchief, which he then twisted between his meaty hands.
“You’re on awful thin ice here, Mr. Cross. Do you care to discuss that?”
Ikey shifted the hammer from his right to his left hand and flexed his fingers. He had no idea what was going on, but each man stared at one another as if dueling pistols lay between them.
“In the end,” Cross said, “you must ask yourself how much more does the other guy have to lose.”
Admiral Daughton stared a moment more. His jaw bulged with tension and the wattle under his chin grew an inch. “Since you see something in this lout that I have obviously missed, I’ll permit him to stay on as long as you take full responsibility. But I want to make it clear that he is your apprentice. I want him working with you and not wandering about this ship doing who knows what. If you can’t accept that, then the both of you can leave.”
“Got it,” Cross said.
Admiral Daughton stared a second more. Color returned to his face and approached a scarlet hue before he brushed past Cross, his arms swishing at the sides of his coat. The steps thundered with his weight as he stomped up to the deck.
“You all right?” Cross asked.
Words failed Ikey. He had no clue as to what had transpired. He nodded.
“Good,” Cross said. “I’d hate to lose another shoveler.”
Ikey swallowed. He took a deep breath. A slight tremble took his hands, and he gripped the hammer behind himself.
Cross sighed and shook his head. “Come along, then. I guess you’ll be in the engine room for the foreseeable future.”
Cross left. Ikey hurried along. After all he had screwed up, and after his last visit to the engine room, he had no idea why Cross would stand up for him. And what was the leverage he used to retain Ikey? Regardless, Ikey vowed not to waste a second chance. He’d show Cross what he could do. He’d make him glad to have him around, show him how valuable he could be. Fortunately, Cross appeared not to know about him and Rose. He vowed not to do that anymore. He wouldn’t betray Cross again.
In the corridor outside, Sharp stood with his back against the wall. He nodded at Ikey and smiled.
Cross called out, “Don’t you dare leave those lanterns burning in there, Sharp.”
“Aye, Chief,” Sharp said, then patted Ikey on the shoulder as he walked past.
Ikey smiled. “Thanks,” he said, and the weight of his gratitude threatened to drop him to his knees.
Chapter Fifteen
As Ikey followed Cross into the engine room, Wendy looked up from the floor where he lay among the scattered parts of a turbine, a spanner clutched in his grease-stained hand.
“Wrong room, moron. You see a boiler in here?” Wendy asked.
Ikey narrowed his eyes.
Cross touched the brim of his cheese-cutter hat. “Take an early lunch.”
Wendy propped himself on an elbow and glanced from Cross to Ikey and back. “What?”
“Early lunch,” Cross said. “Go.”
Wendy sat up and slid the spanner into a loop of his waistcoat. “I don’t suppose we’re all going out to lunch together?” He flatout glared at Ikey.
Cross shook his head. “I got Admiral Daughton’s business to attend to here. Come back in an hour, got it?”
Admiral Daughton’s threat filled Ikey with an odd confidence. Cross had gone out on a limb for Ikey, played a card against the admiral. With Cross as an ally, Wendy couldn’t push him far. Ikey folded his hands behind his back and widened his stance as he returned Wendy’s stare.
Wendy picked up his bowler hat and mashed it onto his head before standing. He dusted his palms together. “What kind of business?”
“You’re still here?” Cross asked.
Wendy mumbled something under his breath as he rounded the rack of tanks. As he approached Ikey, he pointed at the turbine. “Keep your hands off that. I don’t want to have to undo your wanking when I get back.” He glanced up at Cross. His eyes appeared to be seeking approval.
Ikey didn’t look at Cross to see if Wendy found approval. He lifted his chin and kept his gaze steady as his stomach quaked.
Wendy stormed from the room.
Cross rubbed at his brow with the tip of his fingers. “All right. I guess we’ll take it from the top, then. You know how a boiler works, right?”
“I do,” Ikey said as he looked over the turbine guts splayed across the floor. Wendy didn’t appear to have a method. The parts lay scattered haphazardly in a rough fan-shape around where he worked. The turbine appeared to have suffered an internal explosion instead of a dismantling. How the hell did Wendy figure out how to get everything back together?
“Good,” Cross said. “So the boiler turns the turbine—”
“You explained this the day before,” Ikey said.
Cross scratched at his chin. “Did I? Well then, professor, perhaps you can explain it back to me?”
Ikey did. He ran through the process and parrotted back Cross’s words, peppering them with information gleaned from Sharp, as well as some deduced by himself.
Once finished, Cross nodded and folded his arms over his chest. “I forget that quiet guys are usually good listeners. I’m glad to hear you’ve been paying attention. So, professor, let’s go take a look at the envelope.”
As Cross left the engine room, a grin pressed itself onto Ikey’s face, and his shoulders slumped in relief. If he kept it up, before the day was out, Cross might allow him to work on something other than a hopper of coal.
When they emerged on deck, Cross approached the nearest mast. He climbed a short ladder to a wooden door in the underside of the envelope. He pushed it open, then disappeared inside. Ikey followed and found himself standing in a dim passageway formed by walls of parchment-colored fabric. Above, a faint light filtered through the oiled canvas stretched over them. Ikey ran his hands along one of the walls. The fabric felt thin and soft.
“Eight of these,” Cross said with a gesture at the fabric. “Specially designed bladders made from goldbeater’s skin. Cost a bloody fortune. Don’t ever, ever, ever strike a match or bring a flame up here. Even on days like today when we’re not running the electrolysis converters, there might yet be enough hydrogen in here to cause problems.” Cross
craned his neck back and looked around as if he might find the hydrogen clinging to the walls like bats.
They walked along a narrow set of planks. Cross pointed out the superstructure when it appeared in gaps between the flaccid bladders.
“Alum,” Cross said as he pointed to the metal framework. “A special alloy. Lighter than steel, but stronger than wood. You noticed how thin the planks are on this ship, right? We’ve shaved every pound possible off this blasted barge, but if we shed every ounce of ballast and equipment, it still won’t leave the ground.”
“What about getting rid of the nails?” Ikey asked.
Cross shook his head and buried his face in his palm. “We need those.”
“I mean wooden nails. And dovetail joins.” He swept a hand at the planks below them. “That would lighten our load.”
Cross slid his palm from his face. He looked up into the narrow space above them.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that myself, professor. I put in a request to Daughton. He says the Ministry of Defense approved, but the parts are hard to come by. With the war and all.”
“The Ministry of Defense?” Ikey asked.
Cross looked down at his companion as if noticing him for the first time. “Yes, the bloody Ministry of Defense. Who’d you think would pay for such a thing? This isn’t a blasted yacht.”
Ikey looked up and down the passage. It had taken on a more menacing look within the last few seconds, hiding Germans who prowled through the shadows, their dim forms hardly visible through the bladders.
Cross hitched his thumbs into the pocket of his waistcoat. “Say, you’re not one of them pacifists, are you?”
Ikey shook his head. “No. It never occurred to me. I just thought… I mean…” Ikey fluttered his hand around him. “Flight.”
Cross tossed back his head and laughed. “Flight? You flighty little tosser, this is about life.” Cross swept his hand at the expanse of the passage behind them. “Living. This is about trouncing the Germans who are killing our soldiers. This is about having the scariest, most bowel-watering weapon to make our enemies think twice about attacking us. This is about getting paid so we all have money to feed ourselves and our families and put a roof over their heads. This is about living forever.” Cross’s thumbs sunk back into the pockets on his waistcoat. “We pull this off, our names will live in history books until the end of time.”
“But what about…” Ikey paused as he reconsidered the rest of the sentence. He barreled ahead anyway. “What about Rose?”
Cross threw back his head and laughed again—a barking sound muffled and smothered in the curtains of cured flesh draped about them.
“Oy! Don’t even bring that up. So she’s been telling you how disappointed in me she is, has she? Doesn’t bother her enough to leave, does it?” Cross shook his head. “Bloody pacifists. They object to clear their consciences or protect their rakish hides, but do you see a one of them willing to forego the protection of the military?”
As Ikey reeled at the proclamation, Cross jabbed his index finger into his left palm. “It is the duty of every Englishman to give all for the kingdom. Everything. And anyone who would give an ounce less is a traitorous waste in my book. Rose can go blow the Kaiser for all I give a deuce.”
Ikey stepped back into one of the bladders. The sheet of skin billowed around him.
“Damn it,” Cross spat and grabbed Ikey by the shoulder. He yanked him out onto the plank and steadied him. “Careful what you’re doing. You tear one of these things, there’ll be nothing I can do to save you from Daughton’s wrath.”
Cross stared a moment longer into Ikey’s eyes as they stood shrouded in limp sheets of cured flesh, as if they stood in the belly of a giant beast. Ikey had no idea what Cross searched for, and no idea what to hide from him.
The corner of Cross’s mouth flicked up. His grip on Ikey’s shoulder tightened. “You want to hit me, do you?”
The bottom fell from Ikey’s stomach. His hands clumped into trembling fists. Like a match struck in a room of gas, the suggestion made it brilliantly, forcefully clear. He wanted to plant his fists into Cross’s stomach. Double him over. Get that long, smug face down at eye-level so he could tear his ears from his head and bite off his nose and thrash his face until Ikey’s fist erupted through the back of Cross’s skull.
The other half of Cross’s lips lifted to complete the grin. The shadows of his cap’s brim hid Cross’s eyes, but Ikey swore he heard a hissing behind them—the smoldering of wicks ready to blast him with the cannonade of cutting words. Cross’s lips parted. But then his face slackened. He shifted his gaze and took in the goldbeater’s skin next to him.
“Not here,” Cross said. He let go of Ikey’s shoulder and waved at the trapdoor they had ascended through. “No fires in here. Go on with you.”
Ikey trembled with a blistering rage.
“Go on.”
Ikey took a deep breath. The air held a sulfurous tang to it, like matchsticks on the tongue. As he exhaled, he closed his eyes and felt the planks under his feet and the touch of Rose’s hand on his skin.
“Why did you say that?” Ikey asked. “About Rose?”
Cross pointed at the trapdoor. “Out.”
Ikey turned and trudged along. He threw a glance over his shoulder as Cross’s footfalls clipped along the planks. At the trapdoor, Ikey lowered himself down the ladder and stood beside it as Cross’s booted foot emerged from the envelope. The urge flashed to kick Cross’s knees out from under him as he came down, knock him to the deck. But the urge passed before Ikey willed it into action.
Once Cross stood on the deck, he glared down at Ikey. A muffled hammering climbed out from below deck and offered the only sign of life in the building.
“You still want to hit me?” Cross asked. He folded his arms over his chest. Outside of the envelope, shadow no longer concealed his bloodshot and red-ringed eyes.
Ikey looked down, then away at a stack of lumber piled along the hangar wall. Striking Cross no longer seemed like a good idea.
“Smart man,” Cross said. “Never raise your fists against your boss until you are either prepared to quit, or you are prepared to replace him. You can’t quit, and you haven’t been around long enough to replace me. Here, or at home.”
Ikey looked up at him. Cross’s pale face held a stern expression; a seriousness Ikey had never witnessed on the man before.
Cross nodded to the aft section. “Get back to the engine room. You’ll take the other turbine apart before that dandy Wendy gets back. Think you can handle that?”
Ikey flexed his hands. They ached to the bone, but holding a screwdriver and a spanner would help. It was tangible, concrete stuff.
Ikey nodded.
In a flash, Cross smashed his fist into Ikey’s shoulder.
Ikey spun half around, then fell to the deck on his side. He flipped onto his back. Cross loomed above. Ikey’s dad had never done that to him before. Every blow came at the climax of screaming and shouting. Cross had struck him like lightning after the clouds had passed to the horizon.
“Don’t nod,” Cross said, a finger pointed at him. “Speak. Now get your arse to the engine room.”
Ikey picked himself up, backed up a few steps, and turned away from Cross. He listened for boots approaching, but heard nothing until he himself clomped down the stairs.
What the hell had Cross meant about replacing him at home? Could he possibly have found out about him and Rose? Might he compel her to tell him everything? Force her to speak like a music box under spring and key? If that was the case, how would he ever convince her to leave Cross? If such a mechanism existed inside her, would he be able to remove it? Free her from Cross’s commands? The more he thought of it, the more it seemed he’d be required to disassemble Rose in order to learn what he needed to know. But based on his success with the music box, knowing Rose seemed unlikely at best.
Chapter Sixteen
When Wendy returned to the engine room, Ikey lay on
the floor, on his side. The turbine was nearly disassembled to the point of Wendy’s.
“What the hell is going on here?” Wendy asked of Cross, who was fitting the modified tanks into the rack.
“Is Daughton’s carriage still outside?” Cross asked without looking up from his spanner.
Wendy shook his head. “It’s gone.”
“Good,” Cross said. “I’m going to lunch, and you’re going to teach Ikey how to replace the magnets and build up the windings.”
Ikey rolled onto his back to watch the interaction.
“But that’s my job,” Wendy said as he planted a thumb into his breastbone.
“Aye,” Cross said with a nod, “which is why you’re going to teach him how to do it while I’m at lunch, got it?”
“I haven’t got time—”
“Oy!” Cross said and pointed a finger at Wendy. “I didn’t bloody well ask for your schedule, did I? I’m telling you. And if you two ladies can’t manage while I’m gone, then you’re both in the workhouse. Got it?”
Wendy planted his hands on his hips and looked away a couple of seconds, his tongue pressing at his bottom lip. A tuft of blond hair under his lip showed that Wendy hadn’t shaved for a few days.
“All right,” Wendy said. “Anything else you want done while you’re at lunch?”
Cross plucked up a rag slung over the iron rack. He wiped down his hands. “Finish hooking these tanks up. I want them filled to the brim and ready to go in the morning. Tell Sharp to bring his good shovel tomorrow. We’re going to lift this bird.”
Wendy nodded. “Is that all?”
Cross tossed the rag back over the rail. He glanced from Wendy to Ikey and back. “I’m dead serious, you two. When I get back, these turbines will be rebuilt and the tanks fitted. Got it?”
“Got it,” Wendy said. “Now go on. I got work to do.” He approached the turbine and took in Ikey’s neat rows of parts.
As soon as Cross shut the door behind himself, Wendy cocked an eyebrow at Ikey. “I’m in charge here, got it? When Cross is gone, I’m in command. Questions?”
Arachnodactyl Page 14