Imprudence (32 page)

The propeller cracked and splintered, one paddle falling completely off.

The crew of
The
Spotted Custard
cheered.

“Rev her back up,” said Rue to both Quesnel via the speaking tube and Percy at the helm. “No puffs yet – let the sooties fix our balloon first.”

Percy nodded.

“Fix? What happened to the balloon?” Quesnel's tone was accusatory.

“She got a bit of a hole. Should be patched shortly.”

“Squeaker?”

“Yes. Helium, not ballast. We're sinking.”

“Well, don't let her squeak too much or we'll need a refill at Wady Halfeh. We already have to stop for coal and water; add helium to that list and we'll lose all the time you just bought us. I thought we were in a hurry.”

“Thank you, Mr Lefoux, for telling me something I already know.”

“You can count on me,
chérie
. Too bad other blindingly obvious truths elude you.”

Rue wasn't going to let him bait her. “You're too kind.”

He'd already hung up the tube.

Their little skirmish garnered them a good day's lead, possibly two. Some more red handkerchief communication saw them set as brisk a pace as the Drifters could manage.

Rue consulted her friends and fellow officers over a light tea in the stateroom. It was stuffy and hot but she wanted the privacy afforded by closed doors against prying ears – otherwise known as Spoo.

“If we manage a coal and water suck and get out of Wady Halfeh before our friends repair and catch up, could we take to the deep desert here?” Rue pointed to a place on the map.

Percy stood next to her. The others were seated casually, in such a manner as to stand and come around if they felt they had something to add. Out of necessity, Floote and Anitra were included in the discussion. They were, after all, the closest Rue had to local guides.

Percy nibbled a date. “Depends on the wind direction. If we want to keep with our Drifter friends, we are reliant on the winds.”

Rue frowned. “They have propellers on their balloons, do they not?”

Quesnel shook his head. “Those are for catching and slowing a spin, not momentum assist. More like the rudder of a boat. Unless my understanding of aeronautics is entirely off.” He gave a depreciatory little bow in Anitra's direction.

He was being falsely humble, for he knew perfectly well how Drifter balloons worked and had an impeccable understanding of all things aeronautical.

Rue tried not to sneer at him.

He passed Anitra the plate of toast tips in a solicitous manner.

Anitra took one. “He's right. We need wind, and reliable winds stick to the Nile.”

Rue moved her finger further down the map. “What about here, at the second cataract? We go due south while the Nile veers west. We'd save considerable time cutting across the desert both there and later, at the third. We start following the river again at the sixth, here at” – Rue craned her neck about to read the city name – “Khartoom.”

Floote, who apparently didn't need the benefit of a map to follow, sipped his tea. Tea in this weather! Rue supposed that as a frail old man who ate little, English tea was both his main sustenance and a comforting reminder of his former life. She was happy with water. Quesnel, Percy, and Anitra partook only of barley water tempered with a little lemon. Primrose, stubborn to the end, drank her tea with a will, something to be endured for the sake of tradition. Tasherit sipped iced milk from a teacup.

Floote said, “Nubia is dangerous.”

Anitra added, “Not exactly friendly. Not to Drifters, and certainly not to the English.”

Rue shrugged. “War is in the air, I know. But tracking the Nile is no way to ensure safety either. We're over hostile territory, desert or river, and at least this way we save time. What do you think, Tash?”

Tasherit twitched, as though hoping for a tail to suddenly appear that she might lash. “Directness is not in my nature, but with an unknown enemy on our tail, I say risk the desert at speed.”

“Unknown enemy?” Quesnel's eyes narrowed at Rue, as if it were her fault. “I thought we'd settled on them being some big game hunter.”

Rue sighed. “Too many attacked us back before we split the escort. Not even the Royal Society could float that many ships at once, nor would they spend all their might on collecting one werecat, rare though she may be.”

Miss Sekhmet's brown eyes were grave. “That takes me down a whisker or two.”

“No insult intended.” Rue hurriedly backtracked, until she realised the werelioness was joking.
Cats, terrible sense of humour, the lot of them.

Prim looked up from pouring herself another cup of endurance tea. “You mean to say, we're back to not knowing who's after us?”

Rue turned an enquiring look on her mother's former butler. “Mr Floote, would you care to enlighten us as to who might be attacking
The
Spotted Custard
?”

The old man put down his cup. His hands shook a little, with palsy, not fear.

“Hunters you call them?” He turned the question back on her, very Socratic.

“Back in London, Percy let it out that we had a werelioness aboard. They likely think she's the last of her kind. We think that made her a pretty tempting prospect.”

“And if they knew there were more of her kind?” Floote cocked his head.

Tasherit hissed at this.

The elderly man held up a hand. “Would that diminish her value?”

Rue considered this. “Difficult to determine. But there's no legal rights for Miss Sekhmet's people either way, so we thought it had better be us doing the protecting.”

“Unless you are guiding the enemy straight to her pride.”

“That was my point,” put in Quesnel.

Rue glared. “It was Tasherit's call and she said we go. So we're going.”

Floote nodded his grey head. “I see. But you now think that many ships refute the hunter-collector theory? They could have help.”

“And who might be helping?” Rue was pleased they were back on her initial question.

Floote raised a liver-spotted hand and ticked off one gnarled finger after the other. “Templars. Order of the Brass Octopus. Some other secret society. Members of the British Royal Society. Museum, contract, or independent collectors. Sportsmen after exotic game. Or a coalition thereof.”

Primrose put down her teacup with a clatter. Her eyes were fixed on Tasherit. The werelioness looked like she was trying not to be ruffled by such a long list of enemies.

Rue let out a breath. “That's a surfeit of interested parties. Could you elucidate further?”

Floote tilted his head. “The Templars are more concerned with your mother's kind, and likely you, than with shape-shifters, but that doesn't mean they don't want to kill them. A new kind of immortal is a new kind of threat, so the Templars might send agents out of curiosity. Or they might prefer to finance others. Depends on how taxed their resources are right now. I'm afraid I've been out of the European loop. Regardless, it never pays to discount the Italians.”

Rue nodded. Her mother had mentioned Templars. She'd called them
disagreeable fellows with a predilection for delicious food and lopping the hands off of preternaturals, religious zealots with funny ideas about immortality, nightclothes, and daemons.
“You take my advice, infant, avoid Italy. It's not worth it, even for the pesto.”
Since Rue did not want her hand lopped off – preternatural policy likely extended to metanaturals – she had stayed out of Italy. Regretfully, as they were renowned for their pastries.

“And how would we know them?” Rue asked.

“Templars wear white tabards with red crosses. They aren't above hiring outside aid, but there would be at least one present to watch the operation.”

Rue had to be grateful for Floote's knowledge and his willingness to share. There was a lot, she was beginning to realise, that her mother and father had tried to teach her about evil and enemies and secret societies. She had either blithely ignored it, or thought it unlikely to apply to her, or not realised its import at the time. If she had, she might have asked more questions.

“And the Order of the Brass Octopus?” she asked, hopeful.

“They're different, vested in keeping themselves secret.”

Rue pushed. “And they are?”

“A society of concerned scientists that occasionally interferes in politics when they feel the world needs a nudge. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for” – he frowned – “well over a decade, possibly two. You might ask our young friend there.” He tilted his head in Quesnel's direction.

Quesnel flushed as the entire table turned various levels of anger, interest, and concern in his direction. He raised both hands. “Whoa there. You can check me for the tattoo. I'm not a member.”

Rue was tolerably certain, and she could feel herself heating up at the possibility of having to acknowledge this to everyone in the stateroom, that Quesnel hadn't a single tattoo anywhere on his body. She'd conducted a complete inventory on more than one occasion. She would defend him if it came to that – no one deserved to be wrongly accused. However, it was one thing to hint to her friends about fraternisation and quite another to confirm it publicly.

Fortunately Quesnel said, “My mother was OBO. Is she up to her old tricks? I don't think so.”

“It's not her we're worried about,” said Rue.
At least I don't think it's Mother's old chum.
Rue had never entirely trusted Madame Lefoux. Partly because on those occasions when she'd observed them together, they did seem so
very
chummy.

Quesnel watched her for signs of suspicion. “You want to know if the OBO is still active?”

“Is it?”

“Likely, yes. I declined to join. Secret societies are too old-fashioned for words. Haven't heard from them since. Regardless, I doubt they'd ally with the Templars – opposing views.”

Floote agreed. “The OBO is likely a better ally for sportsmen and collectors. Of the two, let's hope it's them.”

“Why?” Rue asked.

“Templars like to kill first and ask questions later. The OBO would rather experiment first and kill later. Either way you end up dead, but at least with the OBO there's a chance of escape.”

“Very optimistic.” Miss Sekhmet looked, if possible, even more worried.

Primrose poured her another cup of iced milk.

They were two days out from Wady Halfeh. All that first afternoon, they floated high and fast over the gates of the cataracts. Anyone free of shipboard duty hung over the railings staring down at the widening of the Nile below. The great river became a near lake, dotted with white rapids and the peaks of a thousand varied islands – rocky, sandy, or covered in palm trees. During the night, they floated over Assûan, a town so small they barely marked it passing. Dawn had them at the second cataract. Rue had never before wished to explore groundside so badly. The fierce beauty of the place drew her, the rapids forming a barrier so inhospitable that no villages edged this Nile, yet the scattered lush islands were the stuff of fairy tales.

They continued on, over the unmarked Nubian border, finally arriving at Wady Halfeh. At first glance it was similar to all the previous villages in Egypt. The buildings built of mud-brick with tile roofs, all tan, yellow, and orange. Paths cut from it out into the desert in sand wheel-whorls. But as they de-puffed, it became apparent that Wady Halfeh was different.

The town jutted up on pillars fully three storeys high, out over the Nile. It was constructed to allow for the annual flood, but its focus seemed turned to the desert, looking to the camel trails for trade because the river was too fraught to provide. Tall industrial pipes spiralled into the skies like obelisks, smoke gusting out. This shrouded the town in sooty gloom, not as much as London, but only because the Nile's persistent breeze carried some particulate away. Still, it covered much of Halfeh in a layer of grime, making the town grungier than the desert around it.