Emilie & the Hollow World (7 page)

It was late in the day when the ship's alarm sounded and someone shouted, “There it is!”

Emilie ran out to the rail, where Miss Marlende, Kenar, Lord Engal, and some of the crew were gathered. They were approaching a sizable island, ringed by cliffs like the others. At the base, anchored next to a narrow stretch of beach, was a large wooden sailing ship. It had three masts, with faded purple sails furled around the lower spars. Cabins with round windows were built all along the main deck, and they were painted various bright colors, now faded by sun and weather. Flowering vines were painted below the railings on the hull. “It's such a lovely ship,” Emilie said, before she realized what was wrong, why everyone was so silent.

The sailing ship's deck was empty. There was no sign of life aboard, no one coming out to investigate the chugging sound that signaled the
Sovereign
's approach. Emilie looked at Kenar, stricken.

His expression was closed, opaque. But she felt it was hiding a good deal of fear.

Miss Marlende said, “Perhaps they had to retreat into the interior of the island for some reason.” Emilie looked at the cliffs above the beach, but there was no sign of life or movement there, either.

Miss Marlende lifted the spyglass, studying the trees. “Perhaps they're at the airship, with-”

“We should be able to see your father's airship from here,” Kenar interrupted, an edge to his voice. “It's gone.”

She turned to stare at him, startled. “Are you certain?”

At her expression, he shook his head, avoiding her eyes. “Maybe they had to move it.”

Lord Engal looked from one to the other, frowning. Emilie thought he might say something to make it worse, but instead he just said briskly, “Now then, you can't expect them all to be standing out here waiting for us. They've probably been quite busy in our absence.” He turned to Oswin. “Make ready to lower the launch. We'll soon get to the bottom of this.”

Kenar and Miss Marlende boarded the launch with Lord Engal, Oswin, and six armed crewmen. Emilie slid into a seat next to Miss Marlende, and no one objected.

Emilie had managed to add herself to the landing party simply by staying close to Miss Marlende and Kenar, who were too distracted to notice her. If they had noticed her, each probably assumed the other had asked her to come along. She was sure Lord Engal, Oswin, and the other sailors noticed her, but they must have assumed that Miss Marlende had given her permission. Emilie thought Lord Engal must be making sure to be more polite to Miss Marlende, after their earlier disagreements, and the fact that...

That they might find her father, his crew, and all of Kenar's crew dead on the island somewhere.

The launch puttered across to the island, its engine sounding very loud in the silence of calm wind and water. The strip of beach was narrow, the rocky bluff above it draped with flowering vines. Two crewmen climbed out to help push the boat up onto the beach, and they all clambered out, splashing in the shallow water. Leaving a crewman to watch the boat, they approached the Cirathi ship cautiously.

Kenar went first, the others following, Emilie bringing up the rear. The soft sand crumbled underfoot, the scent of green plants and sweet flowers was heavy in the air. It would have been a lovely place, except for the silent ship. Kenar headed for the bow, and the crewmen spread out to search along the bluff. The wooden hull was covered with tar, or whatever the Hollow World equivalent was, and from this angle only the decorative painting made it different from a Menaen ship.

They circled around to the port side, the side facing the island that they hadn't been able to see from the
Sovereign
. A rope ladder hung over the rail there, dangling down to the sand. “Was that here before?” Miss Marlende asked tensely.

“Yes.” Kenar started to climb.

“No sign of tracks on this sand, but wind or water may have worn them away,” Lord Engal said, mostly to himself.

One of the crewmen called out, “There's a way up the bluff, here, My Lord. Steps cut into the dirt.”

“We did that, to get up to the airship,” Kenar said, already vanishing over the rail.

Lord Engal turned to follow him, telling the crewmen, “Two of you climb up there, look for signs of the airship. Stay within shouting distance.”

Oswin picked out two more men to remain on guard on the beach, then followed Lord Engal up the ladder with the others. Emilie followed them. She looked back to see Miss Marlende hesitating, torn between the ship and joining the search for the airship atop the bluff. Then she turned to follow them up the ladder.

Emilie climbed awkwardly over the solid rail onto the deck. She had been afraid to see the place strewn with bodies, but there was no sign of that. Yet, she thought, a little sick.

Kenar did a quick circuit of the deck, which to Emilie's untutored eye seemed undisturbed. There was nothing broken, no loose lines in the rigging, the casks and barrels of supplies - as gaily painted with vines and flowers as the rest of the ship - were still lashed into place. Kenar opened the door into the long series of cabins along the deck, moving quickly through.

Emilie followed behind Lord Engal and Oswin. The windows were all shuttered, but the slats were tilted to allow in light and air but deflect rain. They moved quickly along, and she got only fast glimpses of bunks and seats built into the walls with brightly-colored cushions, blue and gold pottery jars, a cabinet stacked with scrolls of paper. One scroll had been left unrolled on a stool, and Emilie stopped to look at it. It wasn't a map, as she had thought at first - she remembered the map Kenar had carried had been drawn on a square of fabric - but a long list of notes hand-written in an oddly square script. She wondered if it was a chronicle of the voyage. Maybe someone left a log entry, a note about where they went, what happened to the airship, she thought. And why they didn't take their ship, even though it doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it. She suspected she was being optimistic again.

She hurried to catch up with the others, who were just going down the open hatch into the hold. It was warm down there, and crowded with supplies, mostly casks and more of the pottery containers, so Emilie stayed on deck with Miss Marlende. There was another separate cabin back here, and Emilie stepped inside to see it was a small galley. There was no place to eat inside, but there was a small squat metal stove with a flat cook top, and pots and jars were stored on shelves against the walls, with rope webbing to hold them in place against the ship's motion. The room smelled of herbs and wilted greens. There was a pot beside the stove, still half-full of stale water, a wooden spoon with a carved flower handle standing in it. Emilie took the spoon out, so it wouldn't be ruined by soaking too long in the water, and hung it on an empty wall hook.

Miss Marlende was shielding her eyes, looking toward the bluff. From here there was a better view of the top, and Emilie could see the two crewmen moving through tall grass, in a big clearing half-surrounded by the tall palm trees. They were scuffing at the ground with their boots, poking through the ferny bushes. It didn't look as if they were finding anything. Not anything terrible, anyway. Emilie said, “Maybe they fixed the airship's aetheric engine.” It was a stupid thing to say, but she was finding it hard to just stand here silently, as if they were at a funeral. She could hear wood creak as the men below searched through the holds, but she bet they weren't finding anything, either.

Miss Marlende bit her lip. “The Cirathi would leave someone behind to guard their ship. Unless something attacked them and they all had to escape.”

The ladder creaked as Lord Engal climbed back up, followed by Kenar, Oswin, and the other crewmen. Kenar moved away immediately to the railing, knotting his fists on it and looking across at the island. Lord Engal cleared his throat. He was sweating in the damp air, and had pulled his shirt collar open. He said, “There's no sign of violence, but there's no sign they took any of the supplies they would need to leave the ship for any length of time.” He frowned at the island, the men still searching the top of the bluff. “Hmm. A closer look at the airship's landing site may tell us more.” He focused on Miss Marlende and said, “We'll find them. Obviously they had a compelling reason to leave this spot, even if it isn't obvious to us.”

Miss Marlende nodded tightly. “We took too long to get here.”

Lord Engal's brows lowered, but he kept a hold on his temper. He said, “I apologize for the delay, but I assure you-”

“No, not you.” Her voice was thick with the effort to control her emotion. “I should have acted more quickly. As soon as Kenar arrived with the news of what had happened, I should have...had plans already in place, I should have...” She shook her head, and turned away.

Emilie unobtrusively pressed her sleeve to her eyes. It was obviously taking a great deal for Miss Marlende not to give way, and she didn't want to add to the burden by succumbing to sympathetic and completely useless tears herself. She wasn't sure if Miss Marlende wanted to be comforted, or how to go about it, or if the attempt would just make things worse. Kenar, still standing at the rail and lost in his own grim thoughts, clearly wanted to be left alone.

Lord Engal seemed to be facing a similar dilemma. He hesitated, then finally said gruffly, “Not much opportunity to plan for this sort of eventuality, when one had no idea what Dr. Marlende was going to discover, if anything. Seems to me we've all been simply doing our best with what little we know.” He cleared his throat. “Now let's have a better look at this landing site and see what it tells us.”

Miss Marlende pressed a hand to her temple for a moment, then said, in a steadier voice, “Yes, of course.”

They went up the dirt-cut steps to the top of the bluff. It was warmer up there than down by the water, and Emilie was glad she was wearing one of Miss Marlende's lighter cotton shirts. The large grassy clearing looked bare of clues at first, but as soon as Kenar and the others began to point things out, Emilie could see the signs that a great many people had been here.

There were footmarks in the dirt, tufts of grass that had been ripped up, divots in the ground and spots of flattened vegetation where large heavy things had rested. Back under the shade of the trees, they found a rock hearth where someone had made a campfire, places where food garbage had been buried, a dropped handkerchief stained with engine oil, a wrench that had been accidentally kicked into a bush. Oswin pointed out that there was only a little rust on it, which it couldn't have been there for more than a few days.

They could see the marks on the nearby palm trees where heavy ropes had been tied, that must have been the anchor lines for the airship. And there was a big square spot in the dirt where Kenar said the main cabin had rested, when Dr. Marlende had lowered the craft all the way down to try to repair the aetheric engine. “It looks as if they moved it, at least twice,” Oswin said, poking at a tuft with the toe of his boot. He looked at Kenar inquiringly.

Kenar spread a hand, shaking his head. “They may have. When Jerom and I left, Dr. Marlende still hadn't given up on the idea that he could fix the engine himself.”

“It was only the aetheric engine that was damaged, correct?” Oswin said. “Not the smaller oil-fueled engine that would allow the airship to maneuver.”

Kenar nodded, glancing at Miss Marlende. “But Dr. Marlende didn't want to move the airship too far without the aetheric engine. He was afraid he would run out of fuel for the other one. That's why we took the balloon to the aetheric air current on the
Lathi
.”

“And obviously the ship returned here safely,” Lord Engal muttered, walking past them. “We need to search the rest of the island.”

But they found nothing, just trees, flowers, and bird nests.

When they finally finished the search of the island, it was time for dinner, though there were several hours of daylight left before the next eclipse. Emilie ate with the others in the passenger lounge this time, since she knew they would be discussing what to do next and she didn't want to miss anything.

She sat in the back, eating a potted chicken sandwich, trying to stay unobtrusive. Captain Belden was here, as well as Dr. Barshion, Ricard, and Abendle, the engineer. The last three men looked terribly weary; they must have been working almost non-stop on the aetheric engine. Ricard's head was still bandaged from his encounter with the Sargasso creature.

“They could have taken the airship to the aetheric current, to test their repairs,” Lord Engal said, thinking aloud. “But why abandon the Cirathi ship?” He turned to Kenar, eyeing him uncertainly. “Your crew weren’t eager to travel to our world, were they?”

Kenar rubbed his eyes. With the scales and the fur, it was hard to see how affected he was, but Emilie thought his shoulders were tense and his usual calm self-possession was gone. Sounding a little exasperated, he said, “Not at all. Until we met Dr. Marlende and his crew, we thought your world a legend. We have our own concerns here. They could spare me for a brief visit, to help pay our debt to Marlende, but there is just no reason the others would make the trip.”

Captain Belden said, “Dr. Marlende could have left with the airship, and something attacked the ship's crew before they could leave the island.”

Emilie saw Kenar's jaw tighten at the thought. Miss Marlende sat forward impatiently. “This kind of speculation is useless. Our assumption must be that someone or something attacked the island, and both crews were forced to flee in the airship.”

Kenar looked up, his expression thoughtful, and Emilie found herself nodding. If something like the Sargasso creatures, or worse, had attacked, the airship would be the quickest way to escape. “The airship might have run out of fuel then, and be stuck on another island,” she said.

Captain Belden frowned at her, as if he didn't think she should be giving her opinion, but Miss Marlende said, “Yes, that could very well be it. The question is, how do we find them?”

“There hasn't been a peep out of the wireless, not that it's supposed to be much use down here,” Oswin said, sounding glum. “We can't track them through the air or the water. It's not as if they'll have left tracks.”

Abendle cleared his throat. “They might have.”

Intrigued, Lord Engal twisted around to stare at him. “Yes? Speak up, man.”

Abendle stepped forward, seeming uneasy with all the sudden attention, but he said, “Aetheric engines do leave tracks, My Lord, when they aren't traveling through aetheric currents.”

“But the airship's aetheric engine was damaged.” Miss Marlende looked uncertainly from Abendle to Dr. Barshion. “They shut it down to use the airship's conventional engine.”

“If it's even them still running the airship,” Oswin said. “If something didn't attack both crews to steal it.” Captain Belden nudged his shoulder in silent remonstrance.

Emilie didn't think Oswin was speaking out of turn. There was surely no one on the ship who hadn't considered the possibility that the Cirathi crew, and Dr. Marlende and all his men, might be dead or captured by something. It was an awful possibility, but it was still a likely one.

“Aetheric engines can't ever really be shut down, once they're started up,” Abendle explained. “The aether that powers them is still active, still producing power, and connecting with the aether in the air, if you see what I mean, even if the motile itself is not being used to draw the vehicle along an aetheric current. It's as if it pulls bits of aether into itself, and leaks bits out as it moves along. Like a normal engine will leak oil. Those bits will be clumped up, so to speak, much thicker than the normal concentrations of aether in the air.” He appealed to Dr. Barshion. “Isn't that true, sir?”

Everyone turned to Barshion. “Well, yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “It's a possibility. But I'm not sure how an aetheric engine would behave here, in this world. Its aetheric composition is different from our own, you know.”

Kenar was sitting up straight, listening intently. He looked hopeful for the first time since they had seen the empty Cirathi ship. Miss Marlende said, “We can try, surely.”

Emilie eyed Barshion, not sure why he was so reluctant. It's not as if we have a lot of other pressing things to do while we wait for him to fix our aetheric engine, she thought. Everyone else, even Lord Engal, seemed game to go on with the search.

“Yes, how would this be accomplished, Barshion?” Lord Engal said. “There should be some way to detect the traces of aether left behind...” He snapped his fingers. “The aether navigator!” He jumped to his feet, forgetting he still had a sandwich plate in his lap. He caught it agilely before it fell onto anyone's head, and handed it off to Captain Belden. “It should detect the presence of aether, any aether, even a small fragment in the air!”

Lord Engal dashed off down the corridor to the stairwell, apparently intending to test this immediately. Everyone set plates and cups aside as they hurried to follow.

In the wheelhouse, Dr. Engal, with Dr. Barshion and Captain Belden, poked at the aetheric navigator, making minute adjustments to its silver wheel, and turning it this way and that. Miss Marlende stood nearby, managing to look over the shorter Dr. Barshion's shoulder, but Kenar stood back at the port, looking toward the abandoned ship.

Emilie angled around, trying to get a good view without getting in the way or juggling anybody's arm. She finally found a spot where she could look under Lord Engal's elbow.

Emilie had read descriptions of aether navigators in her favorite sea adventures, but never seen one in person. The aether navigator had a flat silver plate, etched around with the symbols and degrees of the compass directions. Two silver rings could be rotated around it, apparently to help figure longitude and latitude, though Emilie couldn't quite follow how. On the plate itself, in a shallow dish, there was a silvery substance that looked like mercury, but was actually drops of clarified, stable aether. It would roll around as the plate was turned and rotated, pointing the way toward aether currents in the air and water.

Then Dr. Barshion said quietly, “Wait, wait. I think that's it.”

“Yes, it's reacting to a concentration of aether somewhere nearby.” Captain Belden carefully marked a spot on the outer ring. “But could it be traces from the airship's earlier movements, when it first arrived at the island?”

Tilting the navigator's wheel slightly, Dr. Barshion muttered, “I don't think it would remain that long...aether outside a current dissipates relatively quickly. And we know they were here for some time, preparing the balloon to make the attempt to get help from the surface...” The base plate tilted, sending the stable aether skittering around its shallow bowl. He stepped back, shaking his head, grimacing. “I'm sorry, I've pushed it out of alignment.”

“No, no.” Lord Engal frowned, catching the plate, his big hands unexpectedly gentle as he turned and angled it slightly. “Look at this; it's picking up something on the lower strata. Belden, you know more about surface aether navigation, is that what it looks like...?”

Belden leaned forward, reading the marks. “Faint traces in the water. Yes, My Lord. It's definitely there. That's going toward the east...” He glanced up at Miss Marlende. “Could the airship float?”

“Float?” She glanced at Kenar, brows lifted. “I suppose the main cabin might be somewhat buoyant, but I can't imagine that they would try to turn it into a boat. If they had all needed to leave by water, surely they would have taken the Cirathi ship.”

Kenar came forward, his scaly brow furrowed. “No, there was no plan for that... Perhaps another ship arrived, placed the airship on board, and carried it away.”

“It would have to be a large ship.” Miss Marlende paced away, shaking her head as she thought it over. “But it would be possible.”

“Did your people encounter anything like that in this area?” Belden asked Kenar, apparently forgetting how much he disliked him under the excitement of the mystery. “A vessel large enough to transport the airship? Or a settlement capable of building one?”

“No. In fact, we thought this area was mostly uninhabited.” Kenar pulled the folded square of map out of a pocket inside his shirt and moved over to the chart table to spread it out.

Oswin put in, “That empty city we passed, whoever built that must have had a fleet of ships.”

Lord Engal followed Kenar to the chart table. “Yes, of course, but it must have been abandoned for a century or more, long enough for the sea to shift.”

“Unless it was built in the sea originally,” Emilie said. If there were creatures here as strange as the Sargasso people, she didn't think mermen who lived half underwater and half above it were too far beyond the realm of possibility.

The others hadn't heard, but Miss Marlende stopped and stared at her for a moment. Long enough for Emilie to realize she had possibly said something very stupid. But Miss Marlende just pointed at her and said, “Keep that in mind.”

Tracing routes on the map, Kenar was saying, “One of the reasons we wanted to explore in this region is because so little was known about it. We know a great deal about far-flung areas of our world because of traders passing along maps and information. But no maps exist of this place, as far as we know. Except this one, which we were drawing up as we went along.”

“You hadn't explored in this direction?” Lord Engal tapped a spot on the map.

“Due east from this island? Not yet. Dr. Marlende hadn't ventured that way either. But we did see signs of ancient occupation, the remnants of very old buildings, similar to the flooded city we surfaced near. That was here, here, and here.” Kenar marked the points on the map. “Nothing we saw was anywhere near as large or as extensive as that city. But if these people once spread throughout this area, there may still be remnants of them living now.”

Lord Engal nodded thoughtfully. “The question is: why would Dr. Marlende accompany these people? Could they have promised him help with the airship? Their old city was nearly right atop an aetheric fissure; they may have had their own knowledge of aetheric engines.”

“That might be true,” Miss Marlende said. “If the Cirathi weren't missing. There might have been a reason for my father to leave with these hypothetical people, but not the Cirathi.”

“Yes.” Kenar frowned down at the map, still lost in thought. “My people wouldn't have abandoned their ship. Not unless it was a choice between that and death.”

Which really, Emilie thought, is what we all thought as soon as we saw the empty island. She just hoped they were all still alive, wherever they were.