Arabella of Mars (16 page)

*   *   *

On the seventh day after rounding the Horn, all hands were called to action stations for a gunnery drill. “Ye'll be a powder monkey,” Faunt told her, and directed her forward to the gun deck.

The gun deck, where the ship's cannon were housed, didn't seem to Arabella to be a “deck” at all. The other decks—defined by the deck, or floor, between each—were long flat spaces like the storeys of a house, but the gun deck was a nearly cylindrical space just behind and beneath the figurehead, the massive
khoresh
-wood timber of the ship's stem running through its axis. Three brass cannon, each the size of a man, clustered close around the stem like huge, deadly fruit. The space stank of metal and powder.

Kerrigan had positioned himself near the forward end of the deck, where a stout square door in the hull stood open before the mouth of each cannon, and looked over the twenty or so men who now crowded the space. He floated with hands clasped behind his back, looking, Arabella thought, rather like a shopkeeper in Fort Augusta awaiting his next customer.

“Most of you have been through this drill before,” he said. “You new men”—and here his gaze flicked across Arabella as well as several others—“are mostly seamen. You probably think a four-pound gun is just something you'd brush your teeth with, and even three of them add up to less than a mouse fart in a hurricane.” He laid a hand respectfully on the black brass barrel of the nearest cannon. “But in the air, properly handled, these weapons are just as deadly as any of His Majesty's naval broadsides.”

The experienced crewmen then separated themselves among the three guns, followed by Kerrigan sorting the “new men” into the remaining positions. “You'll be number three powder boy,” he said to Arabella, “reporting to Gowse.” He indicated a burly airman, who nodded an acknowledgement of the assignment to Kerrigan. “Run down to the magazine and bring back a charge, then do as he tells you.”

Arabella had to ask where the magazine was. It proved to be belowdecks and well aft, and like the gun deck it was positioned at the ship's stem in the very center of her body—a small, dim room whose walls were sheathed in copper, stinking of saltpeter and sulfur. There a thin, nervous man whose name Arabella did not catch handed her a flannel bag packed tight with gunpowder. She tucked it under one arm and hurried back to the gun deck, nervously eyeing every lamp as she passed for fear her burden would explode before she reached her destination.

When she arrived back at the gun deck, she found it a hive of activity, reeking with the smell of freshly burned powder. Most of the men were stripped to the waist, and Arabella's gun had been hauled back away from the open port, though a network of ropes and tackle held it fast in place.

Gowse glared angrily at her. “Ye took yer sweet time,” he shouted, snatching the bag from her and tossing it through the filthy air to another man. This second man shoved the bag into the cannon's mouth and then, hooking his feet through two of the ropes that held the gun in place, rammed it the rest of the way down the cannon's throat with a stout oak ramrod. Gowse, who had shoved some kind of tool through a hole at the cannon's base, shouted “Home!” as he felt the bag touch down. The bag was followed by an iron ball a bit bigger than a cricket ball and then a wad of cloth, each packed tightly in place with the ramrod.

Then all the men, including Arabella, hauled on the lines until the gun was snugged up against its port, joining the rest of the guns, which had been waiting in that position for some time. One of the other men then grabbed Arabella by the shoulders and hauled her roughly away, leaving her to sail through the air until she bounced off the wall. Flailing in midair, she snagged one of the cannon ropes and held fast.

Kerrigan, frowning grimly at his pocket watch, immediately cried, “Fire!” At once, all the men around Arabella put their hands over their ears, and she strove to do the same without letting go of her rope.

Gowse blew on a smoldering match and touched it to the hole at the cannon's base.

Then there came a cataclysmic triple crash as all three guns went off at once. The sound was so great that the breath was crushed out of Arabella's lungs and, despite her hands pressed tightly to her ears, it felt as though her eardrums were meeting in the middle of her head.

For a moment Arabella floated stunned in midair, the brimstone stench of burnt powder the only sensation that penetrated her rattled brain. Hearing had been replaced by a vast sourceless ringing, vision was blurred, even the sense of touch was muffled by that terrible sound.

And then, out of the ringing dimness, could barely be heard Kerrigan's voice: “Five minutes, eight seconds! That was appalling, lads! Again!”

A rough hand shook Arabella's shoulder. It was Gowse, who shouted in her face, the spittle spraying her cheeks, but she could not make out a word. She shook her head. Again he shouted at her, and this time she barely heard: “Get down there and bring us a charge, and make f
____
g haste! Ye should have left the moment the last shot was done!”

For that entire watch, Arabella ran back and forth from the gun deck to the magazine, nearly the entire length of the ship, over and over and over again. The terror of carrying a highly explosive powder bag soon faded, replaced by exhaustion and annoyance at every obstacle, human or otherwise, that stood in her way. She became adept at flinging herself great distances down the length of the deck, springing off a bulkhead with the full strength of her legs and then twisting in midair to stop herself with her feet. Then, when she arrived at the gun deck with powder in hand, she joined in the preparation of the gun and then dashed away immediately for another charge, increasing her speed as well as avoiding the worst of the guns' mighty noise.

She was almost disappointed when, after hours of endless labor, she brought back yet another bag of gunpowder only to find the gun deck's ceaseless activity stilled. “That's enough for today, lads!” Kerrigan cried, glancing at his watch. “Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds. Better, but still not good enough! More drill tomorrow!”

Arabella felt in her chest, rather than heard with her ringing ears, the men's groans in response.

*   *   *

After every cannon had been cleaned and every ramrod, swab, and handspike properly stowed, Arabella hauled herself wearily hand over hand along the guide rope toward her berth. All she could think of was the simple pleasure of her hammock. But as she entered the lower deck, she found her way blocked by Gowse, the captain of her gun crew. Still grimy, red-eyed, and bare-chested from the afternoon's gunnery drill, he stood at the ladder's base like some malevolent troll from a fairy tale.

“Ye've made me look bad, Ashby!” he shouted. After so many hours of the crash and thunder of guns, his voice grated hoarsely, but even so he had to shout to be heard over the ringing in Arabella's and every other airman's ears. “Ye've made us all look bad, and now ye'll pay!”

“Please, sir, I did the best I could.” Arabella looked around for support, but every airman in the vicinity was another member of Gowse's gun crew, and none of them seemed in the least sympathetic. “And I did get better with time.”

“It's thanks to you we'll be drilling again tomorrow!” Gowse's hands twisted into fists, and the ropey muscles of his arms bulged. “Ye need to be taught a lesson!” With that he lunged toward Arabella, flinging himself up the ladder toward her with a great thrust of his massive legs.

Arabella's hand still lay on the ladder's guide rope. Without thinking she twitched herself out of Gowse's path, just as though he were some obstacle she'd encountered while running bags of powder back and forth. Gowse hurtled past the point she'd recently occupied, growling as he collided with the coaming above the ladder.

Arabella turned in the air and pushed off the ladder's lowest step, rocketing through the crowd of airmen that had surrounded Gowse. Other men scrambled out of her way as she flew, until she stopped herself with a hand on an overhead beam. “Do you think if I'm beaten black and blue I'll be able to go
faster
?” she cried.

Gowse made no reply, save another growl as he pushed through the crowd.

Arabella turned and prepared to push off the beam. But all the other airmen had gathered in a ring around her and Gowse. No direction offered an easy escape.

Twisting in the air, panting, she stared in every direction, hoping that some member of her mess, or an officer, or
any
friendly person would appear to save her. But every man in the watching crowd, even airmen she'd thought friendly, merely waited, looking up at her with an attitude of grim expectation.

Gowse floated in the center of the ring of men, fingers flexing, a determined scowl on his face. “So, Ashby, are ye gonna fight?”

Arabella swallowed.

She could bend her knee to Gowse, acknowledge her failure, beg forgiveness. And he would beat her senseless, after which her sex would almost surely be revealed.

She could cry out for help. And every man present would know her to be a coward, one who could not be depended upon if the ship did happen to fall into battle with pirates or the French. She'd lose the respect of the captain, who'd emphasized that in his ship every man must take responsibility for his own actions and his own failures. And Gowse would probably still beat her senseless.

She could fight like a girl. She'd seen many a hair-pulling, scratching altercation in the fields and paths near Marlowe Hall, and even been drawn into a few. Girl fights produced much noise and little serious injury. If she fought like that, Gowse would overpower her, and beat her senseless.

Or she could fight to win.

And Gowse, though a huge, muscular man, showed no understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities of free descent. Every tactic he had displayed thus far would have been perfectly at home on the floor of some tavern on Earth.

With a sudden shriek, Arabella pushed off the beam with both feet, hurling herself downward into Gowse's face. They met in midair with a stinging thud. Taking advantage of his momentary surprise, she tore into him with all she had, thrashing at his face with both fists.

Gowse recovered his wits quickly, grabbing Arabella's wrists and squeezing until the bones ground together. She cried out at the pain, struggling in his grasp, but all her strength was not enough to pry herself loose. He grinned at her, an evil leering thing that promised far more pain to come. Desperate, fighting for her life, she twisted and writhed, lashing out with feet and knees and elbows, any thing at all—as hard as she could, but to little effect.

But then, by chance, one flailing foot caught the man between his legs. Gowse winced and his grip lessened. Immediately Arabella bent herself double, bringing up her legs between herself and Gowse, then kicked out with all her might.

She missed her target, but caught Gowse in the stomach. His foul breath came out in a grunt and he let go!

The momentum of the blow carried Arabella away. She collided with a few of the surrounding airmen, who immediately shoved her back toward Gowse. Now she was flying feet-first. Again she brought her knees up to her chest, and struck out with her heels at the last moment, connecting solidly with Gowse's nose. She felt a sickening crunch, like the carapace of a
shikastho
breaking beneath her heel, as she ricocheted away. Gowse cried out and clapped both hands to his face.

This time Arabella caught herself on an angled stanchion. She hung there for a moment and assessed the situation.

Khema had often conducted mock battles with Arabella and Michael among the crags and rilles beyond the plantation fence. “Aren't you going to finish me,
tutukha
?” she'd taunted once, lying panting in the dust after a solid blow to the leg. “Or are you too soft-hearted?”

Arabella had blinked at the weapon in her hand—in reality nothing more than a lightweight bundle of
thukathi
-reeds—marveling that she had finally managed to land a proper hit on her
itkhalya
after so many months of sparring. “I've just cut your leg off,” she'd said. “You're no threat to me now.” She'd tossed the reeds aside.

“No threat?” Khema had said. And with one swift motion, not using the supposedly severed limb at all, the Martian had pivoted herself upright and brought her own bundle of reeds down on the leather at the junction of Arabella's shoulder and neck. “Now we're both dead.”

A few beads of blood squeezed out from between Gowse's fingers, tumbling in the air as they drifted away. Arabella cried out, a wordless howl of rage, and pushed hard with her legs against the stanchion, driving her outstretched fists with all her strength into the hands that clutched Gowse's injured nose.

Gowse shrieked in pain, scrabbling ineffectually at Arabella as she collided with him, wrapping her legs around his waist and seizing his shirt in her left hand for leverage. She raised her right fist, preparing to drive it down a third time upon the already broken nose.

“That's enough,” came a firm voice from behind her.

Not releasing her grip, Arabella risked a quick glance at the voice. It was Young, the eldest member of her mess. “Ye've beaten him,” he said. “Now let him go.”

With one last hard glance at Gowse—he seemed to cringe from its impact—she shoved the man away. He bounced off the floor as she caught herself lightly on an overhead beam, leaving a bloody handprint.

She looked around at the sphere of airmen. Her whole body trembled from exertion and late-arriving fear, but she worked hard to keep it from showing.

Several of the men nodded appreciatively, then turned away. The sphere melted away in moments, as quickly as it had assembled, the men drifting off to their hammocks or the head.

Gowse remained, floating near the deck, grasping the ladder's lowest rung with one hand and holding his nose with the other. “I think ye've broken it,” he said, wincing, his words indistinct.