Dr Morbury's Cargo

by Steve Turnbull

  She was able to see the end of the loop through the hole, even drag it across the fingers of her right hand. There was no way she could make it bend enough to come down through the hole. Shooting pains lanced through her shoulder. She could not last much longer.

  Desperately she shoved the loop of rope against the hull above the hole. Again and again it flipped upwards. She twisted her arm and tried to get more height as she felt her fingers beginning to slip. One more shove. This time it slipped down and into the hole. She stared in disbelief as she shoved more rope and the loop descended several inches further.

  Her right hand could hold on no longer. She released the rope with her left hand. As she descended the loop went up again. With one last flail of her left arm, she thrust her hand and then forearm through the loop before it slid back up through the hole. Her weight now pulled on both ends of the rope, and she came to a halt dangling a thousand feet above the ocean.

  ix

  Late Yesterday Evening

  The dinner party, such as it was, had broken up. The two scientists had returned to the cargo hold. Dr Lambington had said something about being unwell, which might have explained his restlessness.

  Beatrice was standing at the window of the bridge looking out into the night. The dark of the city was highlighted by electric street lamps and punctuated by bright windows. Dominating it all was the Fortress on Sigiriya, ablaze with artificial light.

  “May I escort you in a turn around the upper deck?” asked Mr Ketteridge, who had moved up to stand near her—not too close—and also looked out.

  Beatrice looked over at him. She was a married woman, and yet not so married since she had left her wastrel husband. Tom Ketteridge was an average-looking man, she thought. Not handsome but certainly not the sort to drive a girl away by his looks.

  And he had done interesting things.

  “If you promise to tell me of your adventures on Venus, Mr Ketteridge.”

  “I believe it would be acceptable for you to call me Tom,” he said. “May I call you Beatrice?”

  She offered her arm by way of acceptance.

  Otto was back at his desk working with his notebook and the cards he used to run the Babbage. His face, when he glanced up at the two of them, was glowering. Beatrice allowed herself a slight sigh of confirmation. Otto had taken a fancy to her.

  They at least made it to the door with some semblance of propriety but the door and companionway were too narrow to allow them through together. Worse, the ladder to the top deck demanded a complete lack of decorum. But presently they were side by side at the rail in the open.

  “Is it true the Venusian fungi can walk and hunt?”

  “I believe you have been reading fiction stories, Beatrice,” he said, and she could hear the laugh in his voice.

  “Is that a no?”

  “It is a no,” he said with a note of finality. “But, I know where those stories come from.”

  She waited but he did not seem about to continue. “Tell me, Tom,” she said. “You cannot lead a girl up to the edge in that manner and then fail to cross the threshold.”

  He sighed. “It is not very pleasant.”

  “I want to know.”

  “Very well,” he said. “It is very common to find the remains of animals completely buried in fungus.”

  “That does not sound very frightening.”

  “They are stripped to the bare bone, and usually they are in the process of being digested. It’s quite common. Even people have been found,” he said. “Of course, the fungus is only a carrion eater, in effect. The creature is killed and the fungus grows on it. Fungi cannot move on their own.”

  “So what kills them?”

  “Oh, any sort of predatory animal, suffocation in a cloud of insects, poisonous plants, even simple heat exhaustion—there are a hundred ways to die on Venus without having to invent walking mushrooms.”

  “It sounds silly when you say it like that.”

  “It is.”

  She did not pull away when he put his arm about her waist.

  “There,” he said and pointed into the sky. Just above the horizon was a glowing white disk, brighter even than the Victoria Station directly above them.

  “So small,” she said.

  “So very far,” he said. “Would you like me to take you there?”

  “Could I trust you?”

  “Of course.”

  Beatrice was perfectly well aware that his response had been too slick and too quick. A better man would have hesitated and considered all his misdeeds before answering. A better man might have been honest and said no—and she would have admired him for that.

  But this was not the nineteenth century. The old queen was dead and gone. Her son Edward had brought a new decadence to the world despite his age, and he too was dead.

  Things were not as they had been in her mother’s day. If she wanted to kiss a man who she had only met this very day—though she knew him to be a chancer and even if she was still, technically, married—then she could.

  Even if all those things were true... She turned slowly, allowing him to keep his arm about her waist. His other hand reached out and clasped her bare shoulder. She shivered at his touch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I scare you?”

  “It’s getting a little chill up here now the sun has gone,” she said.

  He said nothing more but drew her close. She raised her face and looked up at his. He leaned down and kissed her. She felt a tingle as his lips pressed against hers.

  She had not kissed any man save her husband before. Tom Ketteridge tasted different. She placed her hand on his arm and felt the muscles beneath his shirt. He was considerably more athletic than her husband.

  She blushed and was grateful it was dark enough that he would not see.

  “So if you took me to Venus, would you protect me from all the predators?”

  “All save one,” he said.

  “Oh really?” she said. “What is this predator from whom you would not protect me?”

  “Myself,” he said and crushed her to him, locked his lips with hers. The sensitive flesh of her lips was pressed hard against her teeth and it hurt. His hand slipped to the front of her bodice, he pressed hard and his fingers dug painfully into the top of her breast.

  She revised her opinion.

  He was arrogant and unskilled in matters of love. The initial attraction evaporated. Unfortunately, he was now thoroughly convinced of her cooperation and she needed to extricate herself from this awkward situation before it went any further.

  Her knight-in-armour appeared on deck. “Mrs Cameron?”

  Otto! She pulled back and pushed Mr Ketteridge away. Automatically, her hand went to her hair.

  “Excuse me, Mr Ketteridge.”

  She escaped from the rail and stumbled across to Otto. “Did you need something, Otto?”

  “Herr Montgomery asked me to inform you that the passenger berths have been completed.” Otto spoke in a slightly distracted way, his attention drawn over her shoulder to Mr Ketteridge.

  “Excellent news. Thank you, Otto.” She turned. “Shall we go down and inspect them?”

  She did not wait for an answer but went straight to the hatch and down into the ship.

  x

  Now

  The Beauty increased in speed. Fanning bobbed back and forth on the rope. She managed to wrap the rope around her left leg and foot to provide additional support. By pressing her other foot against the rope she could take the strain from her arms.

  She clung to the rope, with her arms wrapped around them. For the time being she felt secure but she could not stay here. If the state of the crew worsened they would probably crash the ship. She had to know what was going on in the hold.

  The light of day had faded but the moon would be up soon.

  The thrumming of the driving propeller vibrated through the ship. She could both hear and feel it. While she had been on board no longer than Mrs Cameron, Fanning still rega
rded it as her home—the only home she had had since she had left the southern United States. She did not want to lose it.

  She was already tied to one end of the rope. She pulled in the loose end and made a knot so that she was secure. Her arms had recovered sufficiently that she was able to climb, so she passed the end of the rope through one of the other mooring loopholes.

  Now, if she fell again, she would not have to worry about the drop, only the pain that the rope around her middle would inflict.

  Her eyes had been adjusting with the change in light levels, and the side of the vessel was now highlighted in blacks and whites. With her additional security in place she climbed again, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

  She located the small crew-door into the cargo area. It had an external handle that she was able to use as a grip, once she had succeeded in getting her feet onto the lip. She slid herself up the side of the hull by digging her nails into tiny imperfections in the wood to maintain her hold.

  She was not planning on opening the door, even if it was unlocked, which it should not be, given that they were in flight. However, there was a porthole beside the door.

  Making sure her feet were secure along with her grip on the handle, she leaned across to look in through the porthole. She could not come within six inches of it, even on tip-toe. She was too small.

  She moved out along the lip so that she was positioned directly below the porthole. Now she just needed to gain three inches of height.

  A high-pitched whine erupted near her head, making her jump. The directional thruster above her and close to the bridge had engaged; steam poured from its exhaust as the turbine spun up to speed.

  The Beauty was turning.

  Fanning looked down between her feet. There was only the ocean. She had no way of knowing her bearings. The wheeling stars would no doubt have told her, if she knew how to read them. Something was happening on the bridge and she imagined that it could not be a good thing.

  She focused on the task she had set for herself. The cargo was the source of the trouble. If she could deal with that then all else would be resolved. She paused and thought of how she would appreciate a pipe of tobacco right now. Smoking helped her to think.

  Her other half mocked her. The truth was simple enough. She did not want to go any further. She was afraid of what she might find. When she had been with the scientist, he had talked about the experiments being carried out across the world. He seemed not to comprehend how man’s arrogance damned him. He believed he could act without consequence, or failing that, that there was no possible outcome that more science could not deal with.

  She and her brother were one of those consequences.

  The whine from the thruster unit dropped in pitch and ceased altogether. Whatever their new course, they were now on it. The Beauty swung away from her. As she was on the edge of the Faraday effect, she felt herself increase in weight.

  She lifted her right foot and moved it around on the hull until she found the tiniest ledge. She put pressure on it; though it could not be wider than a finger’s width her foot did not slip. She reached up with one hand and caught hold of the porthole frame. The Beauty’s swing brought it back the other way and she felt the Faraday field sweep through her.

  With her new lightness she put her weight on her right foot and lifted herself up to the porthole with almost no effort at all. Her left foot hung free.

  Condensation on the outside of the glass, caused by the high temperature within, prevented her from seeing anything but a blur of light and shadow. Taking a chance, knowing that movement would be more noticeable, she released her grip on the porthole and wiped her hand across the glass. It took a bit of scrabbling, but she regained her grip.

  For a moment the smeared water vapour was even worse than before but it settled and cleared. She peered inside. The familiar confines of the cargo hold looked normal, save for the modifications that Terry had performed.

  The Beauty swung back again and she felt her weight increasing. She clung tightly and hoped her foot would not slip. For the space of ten heartbeats it held firm and the ship commenced its return swing.

  Fanning saw a movement by one of the sleeping compartments. The doors were nothing more than draped material, and there was a movement at the bottom of one. She watched as a hand appeared, a head, and then she could see it was Dr Morbury, crawling out of his cubicle.

  She watched with the same variety of morbid fascination one has when watching an insect dying. Morbury did not lift his head to see where he was going; he just moved in fits and starts, one limb and then another. It seemed, once or twice, he forgot one. He failed to move a knee on one occasion and it dragged behind. Then he forgot an arm and fell forwards.

  Fanning barely noticed as her weight increased and then decreased as the vessel swung back and forth.

  The crawling doctor stopped. He coughed. Something grey, about an inch across, was ejected from his mouth and hit the deck where it simply stuck. He coughed again and more emerged.

  The arm he had previously forgotten lost its strength and, in the reduced gravity, he rolled over in a parody of a dying fly. She could see his face clearly, or rather she could see the place where his face should have been. His eye sockets were a mass of grey and the flesh of his cheeks partially eaten away, replaced by the same ghastly mass.

  Even as she watched the skin of his neck transformed as if it was being eaten from the inside out and converted into a fungoid growth.

  He shivered a few times as what muscles were still operable quivered and twitched. Then he ceased to move while the fungus continued to consume him.

  xi

  That Morning

  Dingbang woke feeling strange. Sunlight poured in through the porthole of his cabin. He scowled. The ship was light; they must have set off. Why had he not been woken? He sat up and despite the lack of gravity his head spun as if he had stood too fast.

  He felt around his head to see if he had been injured but could find nothing. Had he eaten something bad? Had he been ill for days? Had the ship been hijacked?

  The last thought lingered. Of all the options, the idea that he had been drugged seemed the most likely. He could have been out for days. They might have killed the rest of the crew—no, that did not make sense. If they had killed the crew, why would they have kept him alive?

  But despite his rationalisation he knew there was a reason. They might want him back, and no one else. Least of all Qi.

  He let himself down gently on the deck. It was not that his head hurt or even that he felt sick. It was simply that everything about him felt wrong. As if he had the influenza.

  He pushed his feet into his sandals and padded to the door but stopped before he reached it on realising he was very thirsty. Returning to the dresser he drained the jug of water he kept for washing. He spilt much of it on himself but downed enough to quench his need for the time being.

  If they had intended him to be a prisoner they would have locked the door, but it was open. He peered out carefully. There was no one in sight.

  His understanding of the situation was improving as time went on. Clearly Ketteridge was not what he had seemed. He and the others must be Company men who had finally located Dingbang, and this was a ruse to return him to the fold.

  And, since Qi’s father was dead, they would want Qi as well. They might assume she had been told about the Company. But her father had never told her and indeed had asked Dingbang himself to protect her without giving her that knowledge. It is not a burden she needs, he had said, and Dingbang had agreed.

  He slipped from his room. They might keep up the pretence for a while but ultimately the Company would kill all the other crew. This was why they were going to Calcutta instead of London.

  If he could raise the crew to mutiny, then throw Ketteridge and the other two overboard, they would be safe. If they could manage it without alerting Qi, so much the better.

  Whose help should he enlist? Not Qi, obviously, and Otto w
as no more than a child. Fanning and Mrs Cameron were of no value in a fight. That left Terry Montgomery, Remy Darras and Ichiro. Ichiro could hear nothing while Remy was an effeminate cockerel.

  Terry, then.

  The bridge was to the left of his cabin while the way into the cargo hold was to the right. There was no way of locking that door. He needed to get to the engine room which meant either going through the cargo bay or via the top deck.

  He went up through the hatch and emerged into the sunlight. The position of the sun suggested it was about ten in the morning. The balloon envelope was taut and he could feel the comforting thrum of the engine in the deck. He headed towards the stern. There was no sign of the Frenchman.

  The rear of the Beauty curved in a gentle arc to allow air to flow around the hull and into the huge spinning disk of the propeller. There was a gap of six feet or so between the stern and the propeller, with a ladder leading down between them. The designers of the vessel had been more concerned with maximising the cargo space for the ice than making it easy to get to different parts of the vessel.

  Dingbang threw his leg over the side and, using the railing for support, made his way down. A flat area protruded from the lowest part of the vessel and extended beyond the propeller. It was a continuation of the Faraday grid, to ensure that all the heavy parts of the vessel would be light when needed.

  The cargo hold occupied almost the entire lower part of the ship, and the engine room, generators and furnace were on the same level as the cabins and bridge—effectively on the middle deck.

  At the rear of the ship a ladder went all the way from the top deck to the bottom. A set of pipes came up over the stern, carrying the super-heated steam from the boilers to the heating elements in the balloons. These were not part of the original design but had been built to Remy’s specifications when Qi had invited him to improve the vessel.

  Dingbang had not approved of the changes at the time; the pipes did not fit with the aesthetic design and made the ship look ugly. It was not what Qi’s father would have wanted. But time had shown the method was very effective. The Frenchman had been as good as his word.