Escapement (57 page)

The hand sign again. “Birds watch over you.”

“Like Lachance.”

The doctor looked blank. “White birds fly in sky over you. Never silent, never in order.”

“The other side,” she breathed. Her sense of how the world was ordered shifted. “You stand against the Silent Order. Against England.”

“No, not the thrones. Different. Earth and heaven.” He looked unhappy.

She tried a different tack. “Where are we bound, then?”

“Phu Ket,” the doctor whispered, hands fluttering now. His face had become a study in agony. “The captain no orders, ah . . . Silent Order?” He turned and fled.

It took her several moments to realize the door hadn’t been latched from the outside. At least, there had been no snick or click.

The Silent Order,
she thought.
The same that Sayeed had taken her to at Strasbourg.
Their reach was everywhere. Almost everywhere.

The white birds flew against them, though, and bore her on their wings. She wondered why, how that would be.

In any case, she could not go to Phu Ket. Must not. They needed an escape.

Paolina turned back to al-Wazir, eyeing him speculatively. An airship was an airship. He must help the two of them to freedom. She could be his left hand.

She sat back to some serious thinking while she watched the big man sleep off his pain.

When al-Wazir awoke, Paolina scooted close so they could talk quietly. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Can you understand me? Do you have your strength?”

He sighed, gripping his left wrist with his right hand. “Lassie, I feel as though all the hounds of Hell have been coursing through me bones.”

That was the most cogent answer he’d given her yet. The fever had broken! She felt a burst of glee, followed by a wash of guilt that she was celebrating his return to conscious pain.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Paolina said. “Those hounds are going to be coursing a lot harder through your bones when we get to wherever we’re going.” She sighed. “I don’t think we have much time left.”

“For what?”

“You asked how we’re going to find our way out of this. We’re going to take over the airship.”

Al-Wazir began to wheeze with laughter, then immediately stopped, his face transfixed with agony. “Och,” he said after a moment, then took a deep breath. “You’re having some cruel fun with a dying man.”

“You’re
not
dying!” She wanted to slap him. “Listen to me. This ship, it’s built of wood so light, it might almost be paper.”

“Bamboo. That would be bamboo.”

Whatever
that
was,
she thought. “Thank you. The ship is built with bamboo. You are strong enough to tear the walls open.”

He pushed his stump toward her. “No more, no more.”

“Listen.” She set her hand on his arm, below the bandaged wrist. “Your Queen is not my friend. These Chinese are even less so, I am certain of it. They take me to my greatest enemies, with no thought to help us. Anything we can do to be away would benefit us both.

“Even with one hand, you are twice the strength of any other man on this vessel. They left a portion of their crew behind in Mogadishu when the ship lifted. The Chinese are shorthanded, possibly with a British airship in chase. If we can move quickly, find where they store their parachutes and weapons, then tear a hole the hull, we can be gone.”

“Into the Indian Ocean?”

“If there’s one of yours back there, they’ll investigate us. Shorthanded, the Chinese will not fight well. Do you think our chances are better once we’ve been carried all the way to Asia?”

“No, no . . .” Al-Wazir grinned, his smile crooked. She could smell the sweat of pain and fear on him. “Though you seem to forget that I am also shorthanded. Most like they’ll cut us down. Even if we make it safely over the rail, the ocean will swallow us.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “The Wall is close. There are fishing boats and islands in every sea of the Northern Earth, and we are probably pursued by one of your airships. All possibilities, compared to the certainty of our vanishing into Chinese prisons.”

Al-Wazir plucked at his shirt a moment. “They pissed upon me,” he said as he struggled to his feet. “What is the first step o’ your plan, lassie?”

“Getting you to stand up.”

“What is your next step?”

“We open the door, strike down whoever stands without, and find the locker where their expeditionary gear is stowed.”

“If the Chinese run their airships in any fashion similar to Her Imperial Majesty’s Navy, those should be amidships.”

“I trust your intuition, sir.”

“More fool the both of us.”

They took positions by the door. Paolina ready to throw it open and launch into the corridor, al-Wazir close behind her. She recalled it as a short passageway leading to a ladder in the waist of the ship, but she had been dragged belowdecks in the heat of the ship’s escape from Mogadishu and had not been diligent in noting details.

With a deep, shuddering breath, she stepped out.

The sailor on duty turned, mouth agape. Paolina smacked her fist right between his teeth. She tore open her knuckles as she gagged him. He stepped back and tried to swing a pole, but al-Wazir followed her close, crowding all three of them into the opposite wall of the corridor. He jammed his thumb into one of the sailor’s eyes, pressing his handless forearm into the man’s neck until the Chinese collapsed with blood running down his face.

Paolina dropped to her knees and retched. Al-Wazir kicked the collapsed sailor in the side of the head twice, hard.

“Come on, chit,” he growled. “This is your plan. We must follow through.”

Shuddering back tears, she stood again to see a series of wooden doors and more walls paneled with narrow strips. There was a ladder to their right. She refused to look at the man they’d just blinded. Or killed.

Paolina couldn’t decide which was worse.

Al-Wazir leaned close—the height of the ceiling forced him to bend. “Where?” he whispered. “Do we start cracking open doors?”

“No.” She could barely control her voice. “Look.”
Think. See.
Paolina pointed to the door across from the one they’d exited. “The w-wooden handle. It’s been l-lacquered.” Her mind raced. “This one’s worn. L-l-let’s see if some of them are not so worn. They can’t use parachutes every day on this ship.”

They peered at handles for a few minutes. Just past the ladder, as Paolina was looking over the last door, someone opened the hatch above. A blinding glare of light stabbed down. She hissed and stepped back into shadow.

She couldn’t see al-Wazir. He must be on the other side of the ladder.

A small man came almost sliding down. He landed lightly on his feet and looked into her eyes, surprised.

Paolina punched him in the gut. Even as he fell, al-Wazir’s great rock of
a fist caught the sailor in the side of the head with a crack. Someone above called out in Chinese, then laughed.

She felt a rush of panic. They were about to be spotted. “Quickly!”

Al-Wazir wrenched open the nearest door. The room beyond was a rope and tool locker. He stepped in. She grabbed the fallen man by the collar and tugged him after the chief. The smear of blood on the deck churned her stomach anew. The reek of offal only made it worse.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Get hold of yourself, lassie.” al-Wazir took two hanks of rope and a large grappling hook. “This’ll do.”

“No parachutes in here?”

“Maybe. But I’m more in a mood to have my way.”

“No.” Paolina caught at his arm. “We must get off this airship.”

“And we will, lassie. After we’ve spiked a few guns.”

She saw that he was swaying. His face seemed to glow as well, with fever or exhaustion. “Chief al-Wazir, we have a plan. Please, help me keep it.”

“They trapped your Brass friend away from us both,” he rumbled. “They killed at least one of the airships in port. I’m nae letting these Chinee bastards get away so free. You’d best find something sharp and heavy, at least till we learn where the guns are.”

He stepped back out as someone called down the ladder. Al-Wazir roared back, “Aye, and I’ll feed you to your dogs, you black-eyed bastard!”

There was a shriek, and a meaty thump; then the shouting and running began in earnest abovedecks as the big man swarmed up the ladder one-armed.

Paolina worked her way down the short hall, bashing open doors with an ax she’d found in the ropes room. Whatever havoc al-Wazir raised abovedecks would only last a minute or two. Rampage or no, he was a one-handed man with a hook in his shaky grip, not an invading force under arms.

The third door proved to be the weapons locker. Firearms were racked along one wall, while red canisters stood at the other. Paolina didn’t know the first thing about guns, so she studied the canisters a moment.

Each had a metal clip at the top, with a little wooden rod through a hole in the clip to keep it down. A very simple lock to retard the action of the clip, she realized. So if one tugged the rod free, the clip would pull back.
No,
she corrected herself, spring back.

And something bad would happen.

There must be a time delay as well, otherwise it would be fatal to the user.

That was good enough for Paolina. She didn’t have to aim or fire anything. The chief would be dead in moments if she did not act. She used her ax to hack off the bar that held the canisters in their rack. Some were already gone. Discharged back at Mogadishu, then.

She pulled five, barely fitting them in her arms. At the door of the weapons locker, she set one down and tugged the locking rod free. The click popped back. Paolina then turned and ran to the ladder, climbing with arms full of the four remaining canisters.

As she cleared the ladder into the sunlight, there was a loud explosion, which knocked her forward onto the deck. Wooden splinters spun through the air as someone shouted very loudly in Chinese. She got back to her feet with her canisters still in hand—one had spun loose—pulled the next rod free. She held that canister over her head, keeping the clip down only by the pressure of her fingers.

“Stop it right now!” she screamed.

Al-Wazir was farther aft, apparently fighting toward to the poop. Two men clung to his back, while a third faced him off a long pole. Half a dozen more were laid on the deck. A crowd was close around the chief. Almost all of them now stared at her, or at the smoking hole in the deck just aft of the hatch.

A few looked up at the gasbag, which smoldered above the shattered gap she’d blown open.

“Do you know what that is in your hand, lassie?” al-Wazir asked quietly. “All these lads certainly do.”

“It’s something you don’t want me to let go of.” Paolina tried to keep her voice from spiraling into a shriek.

“Aye.” He shook the men off his back. Most of the crew scuttled to the far rail.

She saw that al-Wazir was bleeding from a handful of new wounds. He still burned with that fevered intensity as well, but paradoxically seemed steadier on his feet.

“Who speaks English here?” she called. “English. Now!” She waved the canister again.

The chief stumbled over to her. “I hope your plan has another step, lassie.” His breath heaved.

“I’ve got three of these.”

“And any one of them will set the gasbag to blowing up. ’Tis a miracle your first did not already do so.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought that through.

A short man in the ubiquitous blue pajamas stepped forward from the poop. “You are fools,” he said.

“Dead fools,” Paolina told him. “All of us. I want your parachutes on the deck, now.”

“Parachutes?”

“Yes, or you’ll be jumping overboard without them.”

She hadn’t even looked yet, but she was confident that it was a long way down to the sea.

Without taking his eyes off her, the officer barked something in Chinese. The men by the far rail muttered, but none of them stepped away. He turned and pointed out three men.

“Follow them, Chief,” Paolina said.

She had no idea what to do next, but she was certain she had to do it quickly and purposefully.

Al-Wazir stumbled to the ladderway to meet the men who were sidling around Paolina as best they could. He growled, slapping his grappling hook against his thigh. They dropped downward quickly.

“I cannot go below,” he told her with a tired sigh.

“Then watch the hatch. If they come back in some wrong fashion, I will release this handle.”

“You will not,” said the officer calmly.

Paolina shifted her grip and the handle popped up. He yelped and started to jump toward her. She counted three seconds, then turned and tossed the canister over the rail. As she did, Paolina noted that the ocean was indeed far below.

There was a loud crack. Smoke billowed behind the ship.

She turned back and slid the next rod free. It clattered to the deck. Using her toe, Paolina pushed it toward the officer, whose face was now sheened with sweat. “If you tell me I am going to die, you must be prepared for me to believe you.”