Arachnodactyl (13 page)

Cross left. Ikey hurried along. After all he had screwed up, and after his last visit to the engine room, he had no idea why Cross would stand up for him. And what was the leverage he used to retain Ikey? Regardless, Ikey vowed not to waste a second chance. He’d show Cross what he could do. He’d make him glad to have him around, show him how valuable he could be. Fortunately, Cross appeared not to know about him and Rose. He vowed not to do that anymore. He wouldn’t betray Cross again.

In the corridor outside, Sharp stood with his back against the wall. He nodded at Ikey and smiled.

Cross called out, “Don’t you dare leave those lanterns burning in there, Sharp.”

“Aye, Chief,” Sharp said, then patted Ikey on the shoulder as he walked past.

Ikey smiled. “Thanks,” he said, and the weight of his gratitude threatened to drop him to his knees.

A
s Ikey followed
Cross into the engine room, Wendy looked up from the floor where he lay among the scattered parts of a turbine, a spanner clutched in his grease-stained hand.

“Wrong room, moron. You see a boiler in here?” Wendy asked.

Ikey narrowed his eyes.

Cross touched the brim of his cheese-cutter hat. “Take an early lunch.”

Wendy propped himself on an elbow and glanced from Cross to Ikey and back. “What?”

“Early lunch,” Cross said. “Go.”

Wendy sat up and slid the spanner into a loop of his waistcoat. “I don’t suppose we’re all going out to lunch together?” He flatout glared at Ikey.

Cross shook his head. “I got Admiral Daughton’s business to attend to here. Come back in an hour, got it?”

Admiral Daughton’s threat filled Ikey with an odd confidence. Cross had gone out on a limb for Ikey, played a card against the admiral. With Cross as an ally, Wendy couldn’t push him far. Ikey folded his hands behind his back and widened his stance as he returned Wendy’s stare.

Wendy picked up his bowler hat and mashed it onto his head before standing. He dusted his palms together. “What kind of business?”

“You’re still here?” Cross asked.

Wendy mumbled something under his breath as he rounded the rack of tanks. As he approached Ikey, he pointed at the turbine. “Keep your hands off that. I don’t want to have to undo your wanking when I get back.” He glanced up at Cross. His eyes appeared to be seeking approval.

Ikey didn’t look at Cross to see if Wendy found approval. He lifted his chin and kept his gaze steady as his stomach quaked.

Wendy stormed from the room.

Cross rubbed at his brow with the tip of his fingers. “All right. I guess we’ll take it from the top, then. You know how a boiler works, right?”

“I do,” Ikey said as he looked over the turbine guts splayed across the floor. Wendy didn’t appear to have a method. The parts lay scattered haphazardly in a rough fan-shape around where he worked. The turbine appeared to have suffered an internal explosion instead of a dismantling. How the hell did Wendy figure out how to get everything back together?

“Good,” Cross said. “So the boiler turns the turbine—”

“You explained this the day before,” Ikey said.

Cross scratched at his chin. “Did I? Well then, professor, perhaps you can explain it back to me?”

Ikey did. He ran through the process and parrotted back Cross’s words, peppering them with information gleaned from Sharp, as well as some deduced by himself.

Once finished, Cross nodded and folded his arms over his chest. “I forget that quiet guys are usually good listeners. I’m glad to hear you’ve been paying attention. So, professor, let’s go take a look at the envelope.”

As Cross left the engine room, a grin pressed itself onto Ikey’s face, and his shoulders slumped in relief. If he kept it up, before the day was out, Cross might allow him to work on something other than a hopper of coal.

When they emerged on deck, Cross approached the nearest mast. He climbed a short ladder to a wooden door in the underside of the envelope. He pushed it open, then disappeared inside. Ikey followed and found himself standing in a dim passageway formed by walls of parchment-colored fabric. Above, a faint light filtered through the oiled canvas stretched over them. Ikey ran his hands along one of the walls. The fabric felt thin and soft.

“Eight of these,” Cross said with a gesture at the fabric. “Specially designed bladders made from goldbeater’s skin. Cost a bloody fortune. Don’t ever, ever, ever strike a match or bring a flame up here. Even on days like today when we’re not running the electrolysis converters, there might yet be enough hydrogen in here to cause problems.” Cross craned his neck back and looked around as if he might find the hydrogen clinging to the walls like bats.

They walked along a narrow set of planks. Cross pointed out the superstructure when it appeared in gaps between the flaccid bladders.

“Alum,” Cross said as he pointed to the metal framework. “A special alloy. Lighter than steel, but stronger than wood. You noticed how thin the planks are on this ship, right? We’ve shaved every pound possible off this blasted barge, but if we shed every ounce of ballast and equipment, it still won’t leave the ground.”

“What about getting rid of the nails?” Ikey asked.

Cross shook his head and buried his face in his palm. “We need those.”

“I mean wooden nails. And dovetail joins.” He swept a hand at the planks below them. “That would lighten our load.”

Cross slid his palm from his face. He looked up into the narrow space above them.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that myself, professor. I put in a request to Daughton. He says the Ministry of Defense approved, but the parts are hard to come by. With the war and all.”

“The Ministry of Defense?” Ikey asked.

Cross looked down at his companion as if noticing him for the first time. “Yes, the bloody Ministry of Defense. Who’d you think would pay for such a thing? This isn’t a blasted yacht.”

Ikey looked up and down the passage. It had taken on a more menacing look within the last few seconds, hiding Germans who prowled through the shadows, their dim forms hardly visible through the bladders.

Cross hitched his thumbs into the pocket of his waistcoat. “Say, you’re not one of them pacifists, are you?”

Ikey shook his head. “No. It never occurred to me. I just thought… I mean…” Ikey fluttered his hand around him. “Flight.”

Cross tossed back his head and laughed. “Flight? You flighty little tosser, this is about life.” Cross swept his hand at the expanse of the passage behind them. “Living. This is about trouncing the Germans who are killing our soldiers. This is about having the scariest, most bowel-watering weapon to make our enemies think twice about attacking us. This is about getting paid so we all have money to feed ourselves and our families and put a roof over their heads. This is about living forever.” Cross’s thumbs sunk back into the pockets on his waistcoat. “We pull this off, our names will live in history books until the end of time.”

“But what about…” Ikey paused as he reconsidered the rest of the sentence. He barreled ahead anyway. “What about Rose?”

Cross threw back his head and laughed again—a barking sound muffled and smothered in the curtains of cured flesh draped about them.

“Oy! Don’t even bring that up. So she’s been telling you how disappointed in me she is, has she? Doesn’t bother her enough to leave, does it?” Cross shook his head. “Bloody pacifists. They object to clear their consciences or protect their rakish hides, but do you see a one of them willing to forego the protection of the military?”

As Ikey reeled at the proclamation, Cross jabbed his index finger into his left palm. “It is the duty of every Englishman to give all for the kingdom. Everything. And anyone who would give an ounce less is a traitorous waste in my book. Rose can go blow the Kaiser for all I give a deuce.”

Ikey stepped back into one of the bladders. The sheet of skin billowed around him.

“Damn it,” Cross spat and grabbed Ikey by the shoulder. He yanked him out onto the plank and steadied him. “Careful what you’re doing. You tear one of these things, there’ll be nothing I can do to save you from Daughton’s wrath.”

Cross stared a moment longer into Ikey’s eyes as they stood shrouded in limp sheets of cured flesh, as if they stood in the belly of a giant beast. Ikey had no idea what Cross searched for, and no idea what to hide from him.

The corner of Cross’s mouth flicked up. His grip on Ikey’s shoulder tightened. “You want to hit me, do you?”

The bottom fell from Ikey’s stomach. His hands clumped into trembling fists. Like a match struck in a room of gas, the suggestion made it brilliantly, forcefully clear. He wanted to plant his fists into Cross’s stomach. Double him over. Get that long, smug face down at eye-level so he could tear his ears from his head and bite off his nose and thrash his face until Ikey’s fist erupted through the back of Cross’s skull.

The other half of Cross’s lips lifted to complete the grin. The shadows of his cap’s brim hid Cross’s eyes, but Ikey swore he heard a hissing behind them—the smoldering of wicks ready to blast him with the cannonade of cutting words. Cross’s lips parted. But then his face slackened. He shifted his gaze and took in the goldbeater’s skin next to him.

“Not here,” Cross said. He let go of Ikey’s shoulder and waved at the trapdoor they had ascended through. “No fires in here. Go on with you.”

Ikey trembled with a blistering rage.

“Go on.”

Ikey took a deep breath. The air held a sulfurous tang to it, like matchsticks on the tongue. As he exhaled, he closed his eyes and felt the planks under his feet and the touch of Rose’s hand on his skin.

“Why did you say that?” Ikey asked. “About Rose?”

Cross pointed at the trapdoor. “Out.”

Ikey turned and trudged along. He threw a glance over his shoulder as Cross’s footfalls clipped along the planks. At the trapdoor, Ikey lowered himself down the ladder and stood beside it as Cross’s booted foot emerged from the envelope. The urge flashed to kick Cross’s knees out from under him as he came down, knock him to the deck. But the urge passed before Ikey willed it into action.

Once Cross stood on the deck, he glared down at Ikey. A muffled hammering climbed out from below deck and offered the only sign of life in the building.

“You still want to hit me?” Cross asked. He folded his arms over his chest. Outside of the envelope, shadow no longer concealed his bloodshot and red-ringed eyes.

Ikey looked down, then away at a stack of lumber piled along the hangar wall. Striking Cross no longer seemed like a good idea.

“Smart man,” Cross said. “Never raise your fists against your boss until you are either prepared to quit, or you are prepared to replace him. You can’t quit, and you haven’t been around long enough to replace me. Here, or at home.”

Ikey looked up at him. Cross’s pale face held a stern expression; a seriousness Ikey had never witnessed on the man before.

Cross nodded to the aft section. “Get back to the engine room. You’ll take the other turbine apart before that dandy Wendy gets back. Think you can handle that?”

Ikey flexed his hands. They ached to the bone, but holding a screwdriver and a spanner would help. It was tangible, concrete stuff.

Ikey nodded.

In a flash, Cross smashed his fist into Ikey’s shoulder.

Ikey spun half around, then fell to the deck on his side. He flipped onto his back. Cross loomed above. Ikey’s dad had never done that to him before. Every blow came at the climax of screaming and shouting. Cross had struck him like lightning after the clouds had passed to the horizon.

“Don’t nod,” Cross said, a finger pointed at him. “Speak. Now get your arse to the engine room.”

Ikey picked himself up, backed up a few steps, and turned away from Cross. He listened for boots approaching, but heard nothing until he himself clomped down the stairs.

What the hell had Cross meant about replacing him at home? Could he possibly have found out about him and Rose? Might he compel her to tell him everything? Force her to speak like a music box under spring and key? If that was the case, how would he ever convince her to leave Cross? If such a mechanism existed inside her, would he be able to remove it? Free her from Cross’s commands? The more he thought of it, the more it seemed he’d be required to disassemble Rose in order to learn what he needed to know. But based on his success with the music box, knowing Rose seemed unlikely at best.

W
hen Wendy returned
to the engine room, Ikey lay on the floor, on his side. The turbine was nearly disassembled to the point of Wendy’s.

“What the hell is going on here?” Wendy asked of Cross, who was fitting the modified tanks into the rack.

“Is Daughton’s carriage still outside?” Cross asked without looking up from his spanner.

Wendy shook his head. “It’s gone.”

“Good,” Cross said. “I’m going to lunch, and you’re going to teach Ikey how to replace the magnets and build up the windings.”

Ikey rolled onto his back to watch the interaction.

“But that’s my job,” Wendy said as he planted a thumb into his breastbone.

“Aye,” Cross said with a nod, “which is why you’re going to teach him how to do it while I’m at lunch, got it?”

“I haven’t got time—”

“Oy!” Cross said and pointed a finger at Wendy. “I didn’t bloody well ask for your schedule, did I? I’m telling you. And if you two ladies can’t manage while I’m gone, then you’re both in the workhouse. Got it?”

Wendy planted his hands on his hips and looked away a couple of seconds, his tongue pressing at his bottom lip. A tuft of blond hair under his lip showed that Wendy hadn’t shaved for a few days.

“All right,” Wendy said. “Anything else you want done while you’re at lunch?”

Cross plucked up a rag slung over the iron rack. He wiped down his hands. “Finish hooking these tanks up. I want them filled to the brim and ready to go in the morning. Tell Sharp to bring his good shovel tomorrow. We’re going to lift this bird.”

Wendy nodded. “Is that all?”

Cross tossed the rag back over the rail. He glanced from Wendy to Ikey and back. “I’m dead serious, you two. When I get back, these turbines will be rebuilt and the tanks fitted. Got it?”

“Got it,” Wendy said. “Now go on. I got work to do.” He approached the turbine and took in Ikey’s neat rows of parts.

As soon as Cross shut the door behind himself, Wendy cocked an eyebrow at Ikey. “I’m in charge here, got it? When Cross is gone, I’m in command. Questions?”

Ikey propped himself on an elbow and looked up at Wendy. “When’s Cross getting back?”

Wendy barked a short laugh. “He ain’t coming back. Not today. And if you don’t bugger this turbine up too bad, we can get out of here early, too.”

Getting away from Wendy as soon as possible sounded delightful. Ikey nodded.

Wendy sat cross-legged on the floor. “Do you know the first thing about electricity?”

Ikey looked away. “Not really.”

Wendy barked again and slapped his knee. “You daft moron. I heard you were supposed to be some kind of mechanical genius, but you ain’t done a thing but shovel coal and build bunks since you got here. Why all of a sudden does Cross want you to learn how to build up a turbine and fit these tanks? What’s the point of you again?”

Ikey ground his teeth. He peered into the guts of the turbine a few seconds, then looked back at Wendy. “Admiral Daughton told me to. He told me to learn the ship’s systems inside and out. I’m supposed to replace someone.”

A flicker passed over Wendy’s face before he buried it in a scowl. “Rubbish. There ain’t no one to replace but me and Cross. The rest of the crew consists of carpenters and laborers, and none of them need to know how any of this works.”

Before giving up a smile, Ikey settled back onto the floor and turned his attention to the innards of the turbine.

“Who?” Wendy asked.

“Who what?” Ikey asked. He undid the final bolt, set it aside, and slid the stator out of its housing.

“Who are you supposed to replace? A moron like you can’t possibly know half of what Cross knows. It’s his ship. His design. And you don’t even know what the hell electricity
is
, let alone how to turn it into hydrogen. You can’t replace us. Either of us. So why are you even pretending?”

Ikey sat up, lifted the stator into his lap, and examined it to figure out how to break it down further. “I don’t know.” He looked Wendy in the eye. “I fixed the arm of Admiral Daughton’s coachman. He told me I could either come here and work on this ship or get shipped off to the war. Here I am.”

Wendy scoffed. “Bollocks. You’re here to scare me, right? A little fire under the burner? Fine. You can tell Admiral Daughton that we’re working as hard as we can. We know what the hell we’re doing, and if he thinks he can find someone who can replace us, then he’s welcome to try. I’ll show you half of what I know about this ship, and it will leave your head spinning. You can go back and tell Admiral Daughton that there is no replacing me. Ready?”

Ikey shook his head. “I’m not spying for Admiral Daughton. I’m only doing what he said.”

“Right. And I’m as smart as you are pretty, am I?”

A response escaped Ikey. He returned his attention to the stator.

“No matter,” Wendy said. “Try all you want. You’ll never be able to hold a candle to me. Let’s get started.”

Wendy plucked a spanner from his waistcoat and settled down beside Ikey. Before long, he had the stator out of his turbine, and he showed Ikey how to break them down and strip the copper wire off. They replaced the magnets on the shaft with larger ones that Wendy claimed had been treated to increase their power. They rewound the copper wiring around the stator, adding more in what Wendy said should take advantage of the increased magnetism in the shaft. As they reassembled the turbines, Wendy showed him how the steam from the boiler turned the rotor, and the rotating magnet inside created an electric current in the windings. Copper wires then shunted the current to the electrolysis converters where it passed through a concentrated brine solution to produce oxygen, hydrogen, and lye. One coil and tube collected oxygen and fed it to the boiler to burn the coal hotter. The other coil and tube fed hydrogen to the cells above.

Wendy made constant jibes and acted as if he was explaining the process to a five-year-old. Ikey said nothing, but asked no questions either. He nodded and followed along with Wendy’s explanation of electric current and magnetic fields. It was all new stuff to him, and amazing as well. On one hand, the ship’s design was so minimalist that it couldn’t possibly have originated from the same person who had made the enigmatic and intricate music boxes. On the other hand, Cross himself had said they tried to scrap every excess pound from the ship. The situation called for minimalism.

“So we’re stuck in this vicious circle,” Wendy said as he showed Ikey how to top off one of the tanks with the brine solution. “To generate the lift we need, we have to enlarge the envelope and the alum structure. We’d also have to add more hydrolysis converters. To power those, we need another turbine. To power that, we need a larger boiler, more water, more coal. All of which adds weight that negates the added lift from a couple more cells. So you see, we have to figure out how to maximize what we got here. We have to make this more efficient. Produce more hydrogen with what we’ve already got aboard. Understand?”

Ikey nodded.

“Sure? You don’t need me to explain it again?”

Ikey shook his head. He rubbed the tips of his index fingers and thumbs together as he pictured the ship’s systems. Again, the brilliance of it staggered him. Piping the oxygen back to the boiler to increase the heat was ingenious. More heat meant more power with less coal—less weight. Filling the envelope with cells introduced redundancy. If one or two failed, the ship would not crash to earth like a stricken bird. Ikey had never dreamt of stuff like this. He thought in terms of mechanics, of moving parts and jobs to be done and actions to be taken. Cross appeared to think in terms of force. Heat vs. pressure. Pressure vs. friction. Friction vs. electric current. Electric current vs. resistance. As Rose had introduced Ikey to a new way of seeing, Cross’s inventions introduced Ikey to a new way of thinking.

His growing admiration for Cross pissed him the hell off. The man was a bitter cur. Mean and sour. And absolutely brilliant.

The flutter of Ikey’s fingers grew in agitation as he thought through the steps taken in his attempt to disassembled a music box. If he considered it in terms of forces, instead of mechanics, might the answer leap out at him?

“Are you sure you don’t need me to walk you through it again?” Wendy asked.

“No,” Ikey said. “I’ve got it.”

After Wendy fitted the lid on the last tank, he dusted his palms together. “That ought to do it. I think we’re done here for tonight.” An ugly smile creased his lips. “Now you can go tell Admiral Daughton why we haven’t gotten this working yet.”

Ikey looked down at the tank. The surface of the brine solution trembled with the residue of Wendy’s efforts.

“Go ahead and leave,” Wendy said. “I’ll find Sharp wherever he’s napping and tell him what Cross said.”

Ikey turned away, stopped, and then looked back at Wendy. “Thanks.”

Wendy stared into the mess of iron rails and glass tanks and spiraling wires and hoses and shook his head. “Don’t mention it. You hate to have to get within a few yards of him, that’s for sure, but it does make Sharp easy to find.”

“I mean,” Ikey waved a hand at the rack, “thanks for showing me all this.”

Wendy looked at Ikey. His eyes ranged over him as if searching for clues of sincerity, then settled back on Ikey’s face. “You’re staying with Cross, aren’t you?”

Ikey nodded.

“You met his wife?”

Ikey’s jaw tightened. He nodded.

“What’s she like?”

Ikey shrugged. “She’s nice.”

Wendy stepped closer and lowered his face a bit. “I heard she’s a witch.”

Ikey straightened his back. “She’s not a witch. She’s not.”

Wendy smirked. “Yeah, then what’s under that veil?” He waved a hand over his own face. “What’s she hiding?”

Ikey looked away, to the array of tools festooning Wendy’s waistcoat. He wanted to pull a pick from its loop and drive it into Wendy.

“She’s blind,” Ikey said. “That’s all.”

“Blind. Yeah, but then why hide her face? Does she not have any eyes? She got these empty, dry sockets—”

“Knock it off,” Ikey said.

Wendy smirked again. “You seen what’s under the veil?”

Ikey glared. “It’s none of my business.”

“It might be. I heard she lost her face in a spell gone bad. And Cross made a deal with her. She gets this ship flying, then Cross gives her his face.”

Ikey’s hands balled up into fists. “That’s stupid,” Ikey said.

Wendy shook his head. “I don’t know. This ship has been nothing but cursed since its inception.” Wendy shifted his weight and folded his arms over his chest. “Maybe you’re next? Maybe she’ll take
your
face… Nah. No one’s
that
desperate.”

“Stop,” Ikey said.

Wendy’s face widened in surprise. “Oh! You’re not scared, are you?” He clapped his hands to his cheeks in mock terror. “The witch of Whitby is after you, is she?”

Heat rushed to Ikey’s face and radiated from his cheeks. A distant ringing echoed through his head.

Wendy’s hands slid from his cheeks and fell to his side. He regarded Ikey a moment, then threw his head back in a laugh.

Ikey brought his fists up to his belly.

When his laugh subsided, Wendy glanced down at Ikey’s fists. The tone of his laugh changed the tiniest bit. The tempo lengthened. The tone dropped. The laugh came out forced, and then Wendy was saying something else about Rose, but the words fell away and rang hollow.

Ikey’s dad used to do that to Uncle Michael before he broke his hip. He baited Uncle Michael with insults and jibes to goad him into throwing the first punch.

Wendy was setting him up.

Ikey walked away and slammed the engine room door behind him.

“Hey!” Wendy yelled after him. “I wasn’t done talking to you!”

Ikey barreled up the steps, across the deck, and almost tumbled down the ladder.

“Get your ass back here!” Wendy yelled as he lunged up onto the deck.

Ikey kept going.