Arabella of Mars (9 page)

The airman looked up over the brim of his tankard, but said nothing.

“My name is Arthur Ashby, sir. I saw the recruiting poster for
Athena
. I would like to volunteer.”

At that the lieutenant immediately excused himself from his conversation, drained and set down his tankard, and walked over to Arabella. “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Ashby.” His handshake was exceptionally rough and strong, like being gripped by a great twist of rope. “Allow me to stand you to a drink.” With a great show of cheer and camaraderie he ushered Arabella to the bar, where he ordered two pints of ale, handed one to Arabella, and raised the other. “The king's health!” he cried, and drank off a great swallow.

“The king's health!” chorused all those in earshot, and Arabella chimed in, slamming her tankard down on the bar afterward along with the rest. Ale sloshed out, disguising the fact that she had not swallowed any. She felt she should keep her wits about her.

“So, tell me why you wish to become one of His Majesty's airmen.”

“Mars, sir. I am filled with a great desire to visit the red planet. And such a fine fast ship as
Athena
is said to be, well, I figure she will get me there sooner than any other.”

“That she will, lad, that she will. She's a fine ship.” He took another drink. “Now, before you accept the king's shilling and appear before the magistrate to take your oath, I have a few questions I must ask you. Are you a loyal subject of His Majesty the King?”

Arabella straightened. “Absolutely, sir!”

“Are you at least sixteen years of age?”

“Indeed I am, sir! Seventeen in March.”

He did not appear convinced, but seemed to decide not to press the matter. “Are you rated able airman?”

“No, sir.” On this point she felt sure that lying would get her in endless trouble, by raising expectations about her capabilities that she could not fulfill.

“Ordinary airman?”

“No.”

“Well then, can you reef, hand, and steer? Do you know the ropes, at least? There's plenty of use for a sailor's skills on an aerial ship.”

Arabella ducked her head sheepishly. “I am afraid I have no idea what those even mean, sir.”

The lieutenant did not seem surprised, nor even particularly disappointed. “Right. Landsman, then. But we've a place for you, have no fear.” He reached into a pocket and produced a freshly minted shilling. It gleamed in the lamplight. “D'ye know what this is, and whose face is on it?”

Was this some kind of test? “It is a shilling, sir. And that is the king, George the Third.” She did not mention his madness, or the fact that his duties were currently being performed by his son the regent. The king was still the king, and his face was still on the money.

“Exactly.” The lieutenant's expression grew serious. “Now, a shilling ain't much.” That might be so, though Arabella reflected that it was far more money than she owned at the moment, and more than she had any other prospect of obtaining any time soon. She felt as though her purse were salivating for it. “But for many years, English soldiers were paid a shilling a day. The pay's quite a bit more today, I assure you! But for tradition's sake, we still do place a great ceremonial value upon the acceptance of, as we say, the king's shilling. Now, by taking this shilling, with the king's picture on it, you pledge yourself to serve His Majesty, in whatsoever capacity he may choose to use you, for whatsoever period he may choose to employ you. In exchange you will be fed, housed, equipped, transported, and provided many fine opportunities for enrichment and advancement.” He held the shining coin up between them. “Do you accept this shilling?”

Arabella swallowed. It was a terrific commitment. Not only was war ongoing with both Bonaparte and the Americans, but French privateers swarmed the airlanes between Earth and Mars—joining a warship could put her into the thick of the fighting.

But she had to do it. It was her foolish tongue that had put the notion of Mars into Simon's head, and now she was the only one who could stop him from carrying out his fiendish plan, save Michael's life, and preserve her family fortune.

She closed her eyes, took in a breath. “I do, sir.”

At that the lieutenant broke into a broad smile. “Then welcome to the Aerial Service of His Majesty's Navy.” And with his thumb he flipped the coin toward her.

But though Arabella reached for it, she did not catch it. For a stranger's hand—lean, dark, and swift—darted from the dimness behind her and snatched the spinning coin in midair.

 

6

CAPTAIN SINGH

“What the d—l!” shouted the lieutenant at the interloper, raising a fist in anger. “This is the king's business!”

Arabella turned. The coin had been snatched by a tall, lean foreigner in a buff coat. “I have been chasing this man for over an hour,” he declared in a clipped, precise accent. Though he was breathing hard, and his face shone with perspiration, somehow he managed nonetheless to give an impression of imperturbable calm. “I desire him for my crew, and wish to present my case to him before he makes his final decision.”

Arabella gaped at the stranger in astonishment.

“You're too late,” the lieutenant sneered. “He's already taken the king's shilling.”

“This shilling?” The stranger held it up and grinned, his teeth showing very clean and white against the dark brown of his skin, and Arabella realized that she had seen the man before: He had been the customer at the automaton shop. “It seems that it is I who has taken it. But, sadly, I am disqualified for your service, so I must return it to you.” He handed the shilling back to the lieutenant.

The lieutenant refused to take the proffered coin. “He accepted the conditions of service,” he growled.

“Such acceptance is not final until he takes his oath before a magistrate.” The stranger turned his attention to Arabella. “Are you aware that you could be earning two or three times as much aboard a Marsman as you could in the navy?”

“Navy pay's not much,” the lieutenant admitted. “But there's prizes for captured ships! One action could make you rich!”

“Possibly. Eventually. But the navy will withhold your pay until you return home, however long that may be. If ever.”

Arabella looked back and forth between the two men. Whom should she trust, the red-faced English officer or the well-spoken foreigner? Or should she run from them both?

The lieutenant might be a good English seaman, but he stank of rum and his uniform coat was filthy and disheveled. The foreigner in the buff coat of a Mars Company ship's officer, meanwhile, had the calm cool bearing of a gentleman … even an aristocrat.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “the navy may chain you into your hammock in port, as a deterrent against desertion.”

“Don't listen to him!” the lieutenant roared. “Foreign b
____
d will say any thing to get a good English seaman. Marsman? Go with him and you'll wake up halfway to Shanghai, and never see a penny!”

The stranger drew himself to his full height. “I am a captain in the service of the Honorable Mars Company, and I will not stand for any more such insults!”

The lieutenant's mouth curled into a snarl, and Arabella realized that he was very likely about to say something that might lead to fisticuffs.

And if these two men fought, her chance for Mars on either of their ships might very well be the victim.

“Is that true?” she asked the lieutenant, all in a rush. “About chaining men into their hammocks in port?”

He hesitated before responding, his gaze darting from the stranger to Arabella. “Absolutely not,” he said eventually, but his vehemence had died away.

Arabella knew a lie when she heard one. She turned to the foreigner. “And your ship, sir, is she a fast one?”

The man grinned broadly. “The very fastest, sir.”

Arabella looked from one man to the other, considering, then returned to the foreigner. “I do not believe I have had the pleasure,” she said, and extended her hand. “Arthur Ashby, sir, of Oxfordshire.”

“Captain Prakash Singh of the Mars Company airship
Diana
,” he replied, and took it.

*   *   *

“You said you had been chasing me for an hour?” Arabella said to Captain Singh as they walked down the street toward the docks, leaving the ranting lieutenant behind.

“Indeed I have, sir,” the captain replied, stepping around barrel-toting stevedores as neatly as a debutante at a ball. “Ever since you left Clarkson's Clockworks. And quite a merry chase you led me, sir. If I had not by chance encountered a man with a very long scarf, of whom, as it happens, you had asked directions, I would have lost you completely.” His head waggled from side to side on his neck, neither rotating nor tilting … a rather disturbing motion that Arabella had never seen any one perform before, and whose meaning she did not know. “That man Clarkson is an ignoramus. All the automata in his shop are built by others; he himself understands only how profitably they may be sold. You are not the first to identify the flaw in the automaton artist's work, and receive nothing but scorn for your sharp eye.” The captain stopped walking, and perforce Arabella did as well, not knowing where she was being led. The captain looked down at her with a steady gaze. “You are, however, the first I have seen to identify the source of the problem and suggest a solution.”

His deep brown eyes were so filled with intense intelligence that Arabella had to drop her gaze. “It was obvious, sir.”

“And there we have it,” the captain replied, and set off again. Arabella had to hurry to keep up with his long-legged stride. “This ragged boy who sees so easily what others not only miss, but deny.” He contemplated Arabella for a moment. “Where is it that you were educated? I cannot place your accent.”

“My father has a plantation in … in the country, sir, quite far from town. He taught me himself, mostly.” In point of fact, Father had shared with her only his interest in automata. As far as formal schooling, Father had taught only Michael, leaving Arabella to be educated by her mother. But her
itkhalya
, Khema, had taught her much on the subject of Mars and Martians, constantly questioning and prodding her to greater comprehension. “I also had a … tutor.”

“I myself, despite the many tutors provided by my own father, am mostly self-taught in all areas of significance.” Again he waggled his head in that unusual way. “In any case, after you departed, I paused and inspected the malfunctioning device, and satisfied myself that you were correct. So I said to myself, this is exactly the man I need for my crew, and I sought you out.”

Arabella could barely believe her luck. “You would take me on as a member of your crew? To
Mars
?”

“Subject to certain qualifications,” he replied.

Arabella swallowed. “I must confess, sir, that I can neither reef nor hand nor steer, whatever those things may be.”

“These things can be learned. However, the Company imposes strict standards for its airmen, so I may not bring you aboard with that status. Would you object to the title of captain's boy?”

Arabella was keenly aware just how much she did not know about naval titles and the running of a Mars-bound merchant ship. “I suppose not.”

“In any case, those are not the qualifications to which I referred. Ah, here we are.”

They rounded a corner. There, floating serenely in the Thames beneath three enormous white balloons, lay the largest and most beautiful airship Arabella had ever seen.

On her stern was painted and gold-leafed the name
Diana
.

*   *   *

On several occasions Arabella had visited the shipyards at Fort Augusta on Mars with her father, to observe at first hand the construction and fitting-out of airships built from the wood of his plantation. This
Diana
was at least a third again longer and broader than any she had seen there; her single visible mast towered more than a hundred feet in the air, and each of her three globular balloons loomed at least as large. Tiny airmen swarmed over the gleaming white balloons, clinging to the netting stretched taut over each one.

The ship's lacquered
khoresh
-wood gleamed honey-blond in the afternoon sun. Beneath the quarterdeck at the stern end, closest to Arabella, a broad, paned window spanned the width of the ship; behind this window, she knew, lay the captain's cabin. The wood of the stern to either side of this window was fancifully and dramatically carved with allegorical figures: on one side the goddess Diana, of course, with her quiver of arrows and her dog, and on the other side a leaping stag. These were tastefully accented with gold leaf and highlights of red and black paint, which only served to emphasize the natural beauty of the wood.

Arabella and the captain walked out onto the dock nearest the ship, where five airmen immediately leapt to attention. One, a boy younger than Arabella in a buff coat like the captain's, directed them with shouted commands; the other four, burly men in matching flat caps, first stood ramrod-straight with oars held high, then descended with alacrity into a small boat tied up at the dock's end. “Take us across, Mr. Binion,” the captain said to the young officer, and with smooth dignity he too climbed down into the boat.

Arabella herself took what seemed like forever to make her way down into the pitching, bobbing little craft, finally succeeding only with the little officer's assistance. His smug, cocky smile at Arabella's discomfiture did not endear him to her, but she supposed that in time she too would learn to bound with swift assurance from dock to boat.

“Out sweeps,” the little officer cried once the captain and Arabella were seated, and with swift strong motions the four airmen rowed toward the anchored airship. They seemed eager, disciplined, and well-fed, with the enormous thighs and calves typical of their profession matched by broad bands of muscle twining across their backs and down their arms as they stretched out and pulled. They moved in easy unison, the rhythmic commands of the officer seeming to acknowledge rather than to direct their actions.