by Jay Lake
The day wore on in the street beyond the bushes while Hethor reviewed his calculations. Distant thunder rolled, announcing some afternoon storm on the way. People screamed and shouted, but he was lost among the seconds and the time.
Gabriel had come to him the night of May 21st, 1900. Hethor had left New Haven the evening of May 22nd, presented himself to the viceroy on May 28th—the day of the eclipse—and been hauled into service aboard Bassett on May 29th. During that sequence of days, something in the turning of the Earth had bothered him, though Hethor didn’t know what.
They’d made Bermuda June 3rd, and his services had been taken up by Lieutenant Malgus starting on June 6th. June 7th was the evening that he’d become aware that midnight was late, and he’d had the nights from Bermuda to Guyana to confirm those readings under the bright light of the waxing moon.
The delay was slightly variable, not increasing much past three seconds. Hethor thought the relative stability of the error was probably good—as opposed to, for example, getting worse every night. De Troyes had shown him how to shoot readings with a sextant. Though he actually was able to establish Bassett’s location with reasonable accuracy, Hethor hadn’t yet been able to figure if that would give him more effective, objective proof of the time slippage. The orbital track was so uniform, flawless as anything crafted by God should be, that even with the help of Bassett’s most powerful spyglass he couldn’t locate a usable distinctive mark on it and monitor the apparent motion of that mark as Earth approached.
They’d also been heading almost due south, toward the Equatorial Wall and all the mysteries that it entailed. With that thought, Hethor glanced up at the dark line looming farther along their course, visible even above the swaying, bright-flowered trees. He was still too far away to make out details, but the bulk was as real as Earth’s bones now.
Reflecting on Bassett’s unspecified mission against Chinese adventurism and empire building along the Wall, Hethor wondered if some Oriental sailor was even now looking north into English lands and pondering the strange thoughts of white people.
“Hethor.” It was Malgus. The navigator had stepped through the bushes into the park behind Hethor while he was staring at the southern horizon and thinking of the enemy.
Hethor whirled, startled as if caught in some misdemeanor. “Sir?”
Malgus walked to the base of the statue, pushed Hethor aside with the arched tips of his fingers, and began to flip through the loose sheets of Hethor’s calculations. He read for a few moments, glanced up at the sky, then turned his gaze to Hethor. Malgus’ sharp brown eyes glinted like knives.
“You’ve been shooting your own observations up on the navigator’s rest.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir,” said Hethor. Should he now tell Malgus about Gabriel and the Key Perilous, and the slowing of midnight? The man had been recommended to him, after all. “I was curious about some things.”
“Curiosity does not become the common seaman.” Malgus picked up the papers and folded them, pinching the edge tight, before slipping them inside his linen blouse. He seemed curiously unemotional, neither angry nor passionate. “I’m reassigning you to the deck division. You can work your curiosity out sanding spars, or whatever task Chief Lombardo sets you to.”
“Sir—”
“No.” Malgus’ eyes narrowed. “Stay away from all of this.” He patted his shirt where the mass of papers bulged. “For your own thick head’s sake, if nothing else.”
Hethor’s back itched, the still-healing wounds in sympathetic anticipation of another lashing. “Yes, sir.”
“Go have a quiet drink somewhere, sailor, and meet the barge when it shoves off at dawn.”
Hethor couldn’t face al-Wazir and other sailors, people who were almost his friends. Instead he eventually found some of the ship’s marines busily wrecking a bar that had earned their disfavor. He pitched in to the effort, not even slightly drunk, but just for the pleasure of breaking glass and sheer, howling lawlessness, something Hethor had never before experienced in his life.
Afterward, the marines bought him gin and a monkey. Hethor drank all the gin and gave the monkey to a one-eyed slave who tried to bow down before him.
TWO HOURS out of Georgetown the next day, heading east along the jungled coast, Hethor nursed a headache that hurt more than his healing back. In quiet agony he scraped paint off the fo’c’sle chaser gun mounts when a shouting went up among the ship’s company. He looked over the rail to see the trees along the coastline swaying, as if a titanic breeze were passing, while the brown ocean slopped like water in a basin.
“Earthquake, by damn,” someone called. Hethor looked up, south past the curve of the gasbag toward the gloomy shadow of the Equatorial Wall. Brass glinted high above it, so many bright diamonds in the sky.
What could he hear? Himself, the men, the ship, a grumbling groan from below—was that the ocean?—and underneath it all, the world stuttering.
The groan turned out to be an enormous wave. The height was hard to judge from above as the ocean swept the jungled coast, biting acre-sized chunks right off the shore while it flooded far inland. Clouds of jewel-colored birds were set to panicked flight, like stars flaring within the green depths, as the faint screams of monkeys echoed from far below.
An explosion rumbled in the west.
Hethor looked back across the mid deck of the ship, past the poop and the helm, to see a burning flame in the western sky. The hydrogen stores at Georgetown must have caught fire, he realized.
He tried to remember if there had been another airship at mast when Bassett had cast off to pull away, but his own misery had kept Hethor from paying much attention this morning. He imagined jumping from a burning airship to the water below, clothes and hair aflame, only to have the gasbag settle from the sky like a hot canvas cloud.
Hethor terribly missed Master Bodean in that moment, the cool simplicity of his clocks, the counting of the hours, and his own narrow attic bed.
THEY CROSSED the Atlantic in the face of two more storms, over two weeks’ air time to the Cape Verde Islands and the way station at Praia, counting in the lost headway from the adverse weather. Everyone who moved on deck was lashed with a line, which did little to reduce the frightening dangers of the wind. Deep in one of the storms, the number six starboard gas cell sustained a hairline slit, some fault in the reinforced silk wall. Two sailors in the gas division died of the bad air before the problem was discovered and repairs effected.
Hethor was just as glad he was not climbing topside to take his sightings in such foul weather. But in turn, he felt guilty for not doing his part to help de Troyes and Malgus. He would have to find a way back to that work. The navigation was what brought Hethor closer to Gabriel and the mission for the Key Perilous and the Mainspring.
Lombardo was almost kind to Hethor during this time, perhaps out of respect for Hethor’s unexpected skills at navigation, for all that their application was in abeyance now. The men of the deck division finally took Hethor in as their own, passing him off a few times to the ropes division to test his head for heights. After the navigator’s rest, the shrouds and ratlines held no fear for Hethor, though he took little joy in them, either.
He never saw Malgus during the crossing, save once or twice on the poop, the navigator conferring with his brother officers. De Troyes would not speak to Hethor when their paths crossed.
There was a muster for the funeral of the two sailors from the gas division, over which Captain Smallwood presided. Almost the entire ship’s company stood in the waist, as they had the day Hethor was lashed. The memory made his spine shiver and the skin of his back prickle with an echo of pain. The captain did not consult Holy Writ during his homily.
“The Tetragrammaton in His infinite wisdom hung the lamp of the sun amid our sky to light Earth’s way around her orbital track.” Smallwood’s measured cadences were as grand as any New England deacon’s, his voice booming across the sharp wind that whistled and groa
ned among the shrouds.
“So He has caused human affairs to be ordered, with Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria the lamp amid England’s sky, her wisdom lighting all our ways. We of the Royal Navy struggle at the edge of darkness, that England might sleep secure. Always, the Chinese is our enemy. As we defeated first the Spanish, then the French, then the Turk, and even the Iroquois, so shall we best the Middle Kingdom.
“But there are other struggles for England, against capricious Nature and dread disease and vile savages dwelling in the wilderness. Seaman Abehr and Seaman Rountree both gave their lives in that struggle. That they were not bested by Chinese shot robs them of no glory. That they died quietly, as men asleep when the air grew foul, robs them of no valor.
“No, we commend them as heroes to the good English spirit, light bearers of civilization. For this moment, Abehr and Rountree are the lamps of our life here on Her Imperial Majesty’s Ship Bassett. Let their shining example guide our lives. And so we pray, as Jesus taught us …”
“Our Father, who art in Heaven
“Craftsman be thy name
“Thy Kingdom come
“Thy plan be done
“On Earth as it is in Heaven
“Forgive us this day our errors
“As we forgive those who err against us
“Lead us not into imperfection
“And deliver us from chaos
“For thine is the power, and the precision
“For ever and ever, amen.”
The rumble of the sailors’ voices died with the last of the prayer. Hethor sketched the sign of the horofix across his chest. A young man with curly hair played a song upon a horn, a tune that Hethor didn’t recognize. Wrapped in canvas that must have come from repair stores for the gasbag, the two bodies went overboard. Hethor imagined them tumbling like autumn leaves through the high winds, swirling to the ocean far below.
Smallwood called them to attention once more. “Though it is perhaps premature to speak of this, I shall say a few words about Bassett’s purpose on this voyage.”
The silence that followed was strained, to the point where Hethor could almost hear ears crinkling as they stretched to capture the captain’s next words.
“The Bible tells us that King Solomon built forts and mines along the Equatorial Wall,” Smallwood said. “Therefore we know this to be true. History tells us that the Roman emperors set garrisons there, to send back beasts for the games, and to see what might be found. Even the Knights Templar were said to have a chapter house on the Wall during their days of power.
“Her Imperial Majesty’s government has decided that England will assert her rightful place in the powers of the Wall, to the glory of our queen and the confounding of our enemies.”
The sailors cheered then, tossing hats and stamping on the deck. Smallwood held up a hand.
“We are dispatched to render aid to an expeditionary force under General Gordon, who requires aerial assistance. Bassett will earn a place in history in these coming months. Every man of you will make your name with her.”
The cheering erupted again, nearly a riot this time. Smallwood nodded and went belowdecks. While the sailors danced and chanted, Hethor went back to his scraping.
SIXTEEN DAYS out of Georgetown they reached Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. The town was on the southeast shore of an island perhaps twenty miles wide. Tree stumps and mudslides seemed to be the main features of the place, though the water was pretty enough. Praia was a miserable little town, what Hethor could see of it. Shanties spread out from the dilapidated waterfront. There was a small fleet of fishing boats, and one honest warship flying the Union Jack. A few pale stone buildings rose above the wooden shanties, their red tile roofs patched, whitewashed walls blotchy and faded. There was nothing of the festival air of Georgetown, or even the welcoming faces looking up as at Hamilton.
Here the captain gave no shore leave. After exchanging flag signals with the ship at anchor, Bassett made a quick stop at the port’s lone, rickety airship mast to take on more fuel for the engines. Smallwood promptly cast off again, beating south and east for Conakry and the Guinea Coast.
Ten days further sailing, Conakry was little better. The port itself was at the end of a narrow peninsula warded by a pair of sickle-shaped islands that could have been lifted from the Bahamas. The land beyond alternated between a dustier version of the Guyanan shore and dreary swamp.
No liberty was granted there, either. Even with his ship-fever at being aboard too long, Hethor was almost glad. Where Georgetown had been a vibrant city of colors and life, Conakry looked to have been felled by a recent war, to the point even of fires burning and dust clouds rising along the peninsula. There had been three airship masts, all now toppled into the shallow water, so Bassett went through the longer and slower process of dropping drag lines and being warped much closer to the ground than would ordinarily have been deemed prudent while on deployment.
Smallwood went down with certain of his officers, including Malgus, while Hethor idled with some sailors from both the deck and ropes divisions. Threadgill al-Wazir led the detail.
“Have the Chinese been here?” asked Hethor.
Al-Wazir laughed. “And they’d be letting us tie up then, and send the captain ashore for confabulation? No, if the Chinee were here they’d have met us with flaming hell and hot rockets, you can be fewkin’ sure. I’d wager another of these quakes yon ground has been stricken with.” He beamed at the dozen or so sailors standing at the rail. “There’s times I can easily recall that life in the air is the bloody finest life of all.”
“Life’s not so easy now.” Hethor looked down at Conakry and wondered about his native New Haven. Had the earthquakes rung the church bells there? Or were things worse?
“I’m no a-liking bein’ this close down,” grumbled another sailor, a thin Jerseyman most of them called Dairy. “Herself the ship’s an albatross waddling along the shore.”
“Aye, and if the Chinee approaches,” said al-Wazir, “we’ll just brandish you lot and they’ll flee in terror of your ugly mugs.”
Conakry was able to provide fuel and seawater ballast, though with all the damage to the port, the ship’s work parties had to go down and pump by hand to supplement the electrick pumps aboard Bassett. Hethor was glad enough not to draw that duty. He found himself afraid of the African coast, and doubly glad when Bassett cast off and made air once more.
THE AIRSHIP cut south and east along the Guinea Coast, angling toward the Equatorial Wall. This was dangerous, Hethor knew from deck gossip, straying away from a base with no relief ahead of them. Airships were not like naval vessels, which went where they pleased, and could take on supplies or find repairs in any port. Or in need, any empty harbor. The industry required to supply oil and hydrogen was substantial. Far more than any airship could carry on its own.
Sailors were a superstitious lot, but the awe of being near the Wall seemed to outweigh even the concern at leaving a friendly port too far behind.
Every day the massive bulk became more and more visible, until Hethor could see the cloud banks towering against the Wall, stretching so high he must crane his neck to look. It was like studying a map through a clearing fog—his view grew ever more sharp, revealing features such as great cliffs and ledges, which in turn grew to forests and meadows, and tumbling waterfalls that had to be wider than cities to be visible from this distance.
There was an eerie quiet to the Wall, so unlike the forests and fields of New England or the tropical chaos of Guyana and Guinea. Hethor felt he was staring through a philosopher’s glass. Or perhaps overlooking some magnificent daguerreotype tall as the horizon.
Silent or not, he could smell the Wall: soil and trees and the pure scent of life, buoyed by water and sunlight.
Hethor found the same sense of being pulled that he’d encountered atop the gasbag. It seemed as though the Wall were a magnet, and he were made of metal. He felt as if he could simply leap from Bassett’s decks and sail over Africa
like a frigate bird to meet the rising country God had laid before him.
Sunlight made the air far up on the Wall sparkle even well into the night. Dawn, when it came, was preceded by harbingers in the form of sky-high spears of gold and gray—light, of course, striking the Wall from far to the east where the sun still hid her face from Earth’s rotation. Storms moved at night across the great face, lightning playing like sparklers set for Guy Fawkes Day in a blue celebration writ large across the vertical miles.
Every air sailor knew that the higher a ship went, the less strong the air became. The very atmosphere grew weak upon departing farther from Earth’s embrace. Eventually it grew thin and bad, so that men sickened or died. Whole ships could be lost.
How then, Hethor wondered, did there come to be air so high up on the Wall, air thick enough to brew storms and build forests? He asked al-Wazir, who continued to show him far more kindness than Lombardo ever bothered to.
“Well, and that’s a good question, friend,” al-Wazir burred in his Scottish accent. “It must be because the good Lord God made it so. Surely if He can hang the lamp of the sun with nae more than the heavens themselves for a hook, He can make air stick to His Wall. Think on this, that air up there is still close to the ground. ’Tis just different fewkin’ ground.”
“Different ground ain’t in it,” said Dairy, who was listening nearby. “There’s cities made of jools up there, boyo, and giant iron men that stride the lands like locomotives, their steam hearts shrieking loud as any Mick’s banshee bastards.”
“Dairy.” Al-Wazir’s voice was a warning. “They’s just tales, and more than twice-told, so less than the voice of rumor.”
“Captain Smallwood said the Romans were here,” Hethor blurted. “Couldn’t there be cities?”