by Scott McKay
But from then on Udar were not permitted to immigrate to Ardenia. They had tried, to be sure, and there was a mechanism to facilitate Udar who wanted out of their country: if an Udar asked for refuge, they’d be taken to Adams Island to work in the coal mines as an indenture to pay for their travel across the Great Sea, whereby they could then settle in Leria, Thosia, Taravel or one of the other countries in the vast archipelago on the other side of the ocean.
That was probably the best anybody could do for Edyene. But what a waste! Patrick thought. She was a staggering beauty. He could tell Broadham, who was about her age, heartily agreed.
“Your mother was a javeen,” Broadham pressed. “Was she Ardenian? She was captured and brought to your Anur?”
Edyene nodded.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Ann,” she answered. “Ann Ludlow. She say she from May-den-stead.”
Maidenstead was the southernmost city in Ardenia, an equatorial port on the Charles Peninsula which jutted southward at the far eastern end of Watkins Gulf. In years past the Udar had been very bold in attacking not just shipping to and from that city of 100,000; at times they’d actually come ashore there to take women as slaves.
Patrick shook his head at the brutality. I’m sorry for what they did to you, Mrs. Ludlow, he thought. And I’m sorry the Navy allowed it.
Her heritage meant Edyene was half Ardenian, though, which made her prospects for immigration a little different. Legally anyone who was half Ardenian or more was eligible for Ardenian residency, so they could put Edyene together with a judge-advocate when they next made port and, with a letter of recommendation from Patrick, she stood a fighting chance of being allowed to immigrate.
Another effect of that information was that Patrick now could charge Ago’an with murder under the Ardenian Naval Code and, after a brief shipboard trial, hang him from the observation tower.
Which he desperately wanted to do.
He doubted that having Broadham relay that desire to the man when he sat back down to re-interrogate him would produce a deeper level of cooperation, but if nothing else, Patrick thought, letting the sonofabitch swing might just intimidate some of their other guests into a friendlier, more collegial attitude toward Broadham’s inquiries.
He was also inclined to help Edyene. But Patrick wasn’t about to let her know that. Not yet.
“Find out if she knows anything else that can help us, Joey,” Patrick said.
“Aye, sir. Thank you, sir,” beamed Broadham.
…
TWENTY FOUR
Principia – Afternoon (Second Day)
Preston Cross VII and his son ambled out of the Harrow Building and down Mercantile Street toward the Morgan River three blocks away, making small talk about the super-rich neighbors of the Cross estate about thirty miles up the Morgan. The river valley west of the capital was the scene of stunning, fabulous wealth built up over centuries of highly-successful farming, and then later, land development and investments in Ardenia’s industrial and technological Golden Age. The families controlling the Morgan River Valley, of which the Crosses were one, were the closest thing remaining to an aristocracy which had been abandoned when Fletcher Belgrave had led the revolution deposing the Ardenian monarchy some 400 years earlier. The Morgan Valley elite didn’t possess their status because of any titles conferred on them, though; these were aristocrats of a commercial and capitalist stripe.
Sebastian had grown up around the Morgan Valley gentry and taken them more or less for granted in his youth, but after the just-concluded experience of his entrepreneurial endeavor in aviation, he was certainly forming a new perspective on what it took to achieve and hold that exalted status.
When they reached the river, Sebastian regarded perhaps the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It was a boat–a yacht, to be more precise, though his usual definition of such a craft would include rigging and sails, of which this vessel had none. Instead, the 100-foot craft had only one mast just aft of its bridge, on which were strung bulbs for electric light, and its steel hull sloped gracefully to the waterline. Aft, Sebastian could see what looked like twin screw propellers under the waterline and below the transom in the afternoon light, and noted the name “SEBASTIAN” painted across the transom. The craft had a large cabin; it looked as though six dozen people could easily recreate themselves aboard on a day trip, and who could say how many the boat would sleep.
“This,” he said, touched that the craft was named for him, “is a beauty.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Preston said. “It suffices for the occasional trip to the capital.”
“I’ve never seen a design like this,” Sebastian said. “It’s radical. No sails?”
“Strictly speaking it isn’t legal,” said his father. “But since it’s a custom build, privately owned, and not used for commercial purposes, it’s not subject to the Transportation Commission’s regulations and its construction and use are within the law.”
“You got around those, huh?” Sebastian said approvingly.
“It pays to have expert legal counsel,” Preston said. “Let’s go aboard. Take a quick trip with me. I have some things to show you.”
The two boarded the yacht, and in the opulent stateroom just aft of the bridge Sebastian found Gregg, the family’s solicitor, waiting with an expectant look. The two greeted, and Gregg congratulated Sebastian on his new career as a military aviator.
Shortly they were underway west on the Morgan. Though motoring against the river’s strong current, they were going fast, Sebastian noted: easily thirty knots. “What does this run on?” he asked his father over the drone of the engines. “I don’t see a smokestack, so it’s certainly not a steam engine.”
“Methanol,” came the answer.
“Methanol – you mean wood alcohol?” Sebastian asked, eyes wide. “As a vehicular fuel? I’ll bet that definitely isn’t legal.”
“Nobody has asked yet,” Preston said. “If they want to put the manacles on me, they know where to find me.”
Sebastian was dumbstruck. Here he thought he was the technologist in the family, but after not having had a real conversation with his father for almost a year the old man showed up with a marvel of innovation on the day he lost his business. It was enough to unhinge him, but there wasn’t much point in showing it.
“I am surprised,” he told his father. “I have to admit that.”
“We’re just getting started,” Preston said, pointing to a riverside warehouse just ahead as the pilot angled the yacht in its direction and throttled back on the engines. “That’s the place.”
“Sovereign Paper Works,” read the large sign atop the roof. Sebastian knew that among the Cross family’s investments were a large paper mill in Adalico, 300 miles north of the capital, and large tracts of timberland along the Allard River, which flowed north to the port of Winterstead.
“Are you buying me a card?” Sebastian joked to his father, who gave him a knowing look in response.
“Just keep an open mind,” Preston told him.
They debarked, and Sebastian found himself greeted by an exceptionally cute female in her twenties when he entered the warehouse. She wore a name tag on the lapel of her blazer which identified her as Stacey, and he was keen to observe that her skirt came down only to her knees – giving him a magnificent view of a shapely pair of calves accentuated by a pair of three-inch heels she was wearing.
“Very modern,” he complimented her. “I admire your style, Miss Stacey.” She gave him a smile.
“Follow me, please, gentlemen,” she said.
Sebastian mouthed “Wow!” to his father as they followed her into the warehouse, earning a nod from Preston and a chuckle from Gregg. The old man was a widower, as Sebastian’s mother had passed away a decade earlier. He’d kept his own counsel as to his romantic life, though Sebastian had heard the odd bit of gossip about his father’s various flirtations and distractions.
Stacey led them past a serie
s of paper-cutting machines through which employees were feeding reams of various stocks for different uses: greeting cards, loose-leaf paper, even cardboard. Sebastian struggled to understand what he was doing here, until their guide brought them to an oversized freight elevator on the other side of the building.
“Going down, are we?” Sebastian deadpanned as Stacey held the door open for them.
“Mr. Sebastian, this is a professional operation,” she admonished him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She shot him a flirty sideways glance.
The elevator descended for longer than Sebastian would expect, indicating they were deep below street level. Finally, Stacey opened the gate and the three men walked out onto what looked like a highly-advanced engineering laboratory.
“This is what we’re here for,” said Preston. “Thank you, Stacey,” he told her as she returned to the elevator and ascended back to the ground floor.
Sebastian looked around, and what he saw made his heart sink. He’d been assured that Foreman Technologies, which had bought Airbound for a song, was the pioneer of the internal combustion engine. It was clear to him as he looked at the machines in this laboratory that he’d been lied to. In front of Sebastian was a motor attached to a twelve-foot boat propeller; its small size relative to the fan defied Sebastian’s understanding. To his right was a vehicle he recognized as something like a steam wagon, but he saw no smokestack; instead there was a lifted hood in front of the vehicle’s windshield, and underneath it was a motor.
Sebastian also saw a farm tractor to his left, of a far more advanced design than the Somerset tractor currently in more or less exclusive use around the country. And to his right he saw something he didn’t recognize. It had a fuselage about fifteen feet long, and a pair of large propellers attached to what looked like metal wings; there were two stacked one atop the other. Fins above and to the side protruded from the back of the fuselage.
“What is this?” he asked.
“We’ll get to that,” Preston said. “But first let me say a few things you’ll need to hear. And I should apologize that I’m saying them now, because it might have been more helpful had we had this conversation several weeks ago.
“I understand why you didn’t come to me with your business problem,” the old man continued. “I respect it. You’re your own man, and you want to make your own way. And you’re an honorable man who’s willing to suffer in order to do what’s right, which is how I raised you. And what I said earlier, about the arrangement you’ve made, I stand behind it. I respect that you’ve done it.”
Gregg voiced his agreement.
“All right,” said Sebastian, knowing he was on the verge of hearing a “but.”
“But,” his father continued, “I think things might–might–have worked out a little better had you come to me with your problem.”
“Ugh,” Sebastian said. “Are we really going to do this?”
“No,” Preston said. “Please don’t take what I am telling you in that way. This comes by way of information, not admonition, and what I offer you has value going forward beyond whatever regret it might bring to you.”
Sebastian went quiet, allowing his father to continue. Just then a young man in a laboratory coat over a pair of knee boots approached the pair.
“A little later we’re going to talk about last night’s meeting,” Gregg interjected, “because there are levels to what went on that you weren’t privy to and couldn’t really be. I think you’ll understand after you’ve heard it all.”
“I do love a good mystery,” Sebastian said as he rolled his eyes. “You wise old men are making my spleen ache.”
“Ahhh, Marcus,” his father greeted the man. “Sebastian, meet Marcus Reeves, the best engineer in the world. Marcus, my son Sebastian.”
“It’s a wondrous pleasure, sir,” Marcus said. “I am a great admirer of yours.”
“I appreciate that,” said Sebastian, unable to return the compliment to the man, whom he’d never heard of. “And I greatly appreciate this collection of machinery you have here. What is that contraption over there?”
“We shall get to that one,” Marcus said, causing Preston and Gregg to chuckle and Sebastian to once again roll his eyes. “Consider this a nickel tour.”
Marcus then led the pair to the boat propeller and its motor. “First, I want to show you this engine, because we are sending four of these by rail to Barley Point in the morning, along with a team of mechanics.”
“Why is that?” Sebastian asked.
“To replace the trash Foreman is installing on the Clyde and the Ann Marie,” Gregg answered. “Those engines will barely even get your airships down to Dunnan’s Claim, if they even do, before they give out.”
“Come again?” Sebastian responded. “Didn’t you broker a deal for me to practically give away my company to those people? And now you’re telling me their grand innovation is junk?”
Gregg put up his hands in a plea for patience.
Reeves then gave a quick explanation, which Sebastian could just about follow, of the design defects of the Foreman engines in comparison to the model which lay in front of them. The long and short of what he was telling Sebastian was that this engine was capable of generating considerably better speed for the airships than expected of the Foreman engines, and with far, far greater reliability.
“Wait,” Sebastian said. “Run that number past me again? How fast?”
“One hundred twenty miles per hour projected from the horsepower and weight, based on Foreman’s estimates of their own performance,” Reeves said. “With an effective range of 1,000 miles.”
“And what’s it run on?”
“Methanol,” said his father. “We do process wood in Adalico, after all.”
“None of this is legal,” Sebastian observed. “On the other hand, we’re talking about airships, and the Transportation Commission doesn’t regulate airships…”
With that, Reeves produced a thick file folder and passed it to Sebastian. “Here’s some light reading for your locomotive trip.”
Sebastian flipped quickly through the sheaf of papers he was given. “This is what, regulations?”
Gregg nodded. “What you will find is that the Transportation Commission is now assuming jurisdiction of the aviation industry, and what is in that file will be introduced at the Societam on Monday of next week. Essentially, it will codify the design specifications of the Clyde and the Ann Marie as the only legal designs for aviation vehicles. And while the Army is taking delivery of the airships, the intellectual property reflected in those specifications now belongs to Foreman Technologies.”
“Meaning that Foreman is getting a monopoly on civilian aviation,” Sebastian said, his heart sinking. “For 10.2 million decirans. I am an imbecile of legendary proportions.”
“You aren’t,” said Preston. “You just got caught up in the same kind of thing every innovator in Ardenia has eventually been ensnared in for the last ten years.”
Sebastian looked accusingly at Gregg, who gave him a sympathetic look. “You’re going to understand all of it. Just listen and take a wide view.”
“This tractor,” said Reeves. “Superior in every way to the Somerset steam model, and illegal for commercial sale. Why?”
“You know why,” Preston said.
“Somerset’s chairman is Brenton Vines,” Sebastian said. “Whose son is Mortimer Vines, of the Peace Party and the Belgarden delegation. You’re telling me the design specifications for anything other than a Somerset tractor are illegal to manufacture for commercial sale, which is why they’ve got an effective monopoly on that industry.”
His three interlocutors all nodded.
“So whose tractor is this?”
“It’s a prototype,” Preston said. “One of Marcus’ designs. Built for Henry Dutton.” Sebastian recognized Dutton as one of the Morgan River Valley landed elite; he had 15,000 acres of wheat and corn east of Greencastle.
“He can’t even use it on his o
wn land, I’ll bet,” Sebastian observed.
“No, he cannot,” said Gregg. “Not if he wants to sell his harvest.”
“But he’s building a factory in Leria,” Preston said, “and he’s going to make them and sell them there. Before long the Lerians will have caught up to us in farm machinery and we won’t be able to export grain to them anymore.”
Sebastian whistled. “You know this how, Papa?”
“He’s one of Dutton’s investors,” Gregg explained. “Lots of money to be made, and there’s no restriction, yet, on technology export where the technology itself isn’t legal here.”
“How idiotic,” said Sebastian, earning nods from all three. “This is more advanced tech than we allow in our market and it ends up in the hands of a trading partner a century behind us.”
“And this lorry over here,” Reeves said. “Internal combustion, can reach sixty miles per hour, which is twice the speed of either the Landale steam wagon or the Marvel steam lorry. Also illegal for commercial sale.”
“Landale gave a million decirans to the Peace Party last year,” Gregg said. “And Marvel is owned by the Barnaby family – which is Jonah Barnaby, who is the Director-General of the Peace Party.”
He was starting to understand what they were telling him.
“Had you come to me before doing the deal you did yesterday,” his father said, “I could have given you the capital to save Airbound, and furthermore, we could have refitted you with technology that would have solved your engineering problems.”