Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3) (3 page)

Sabrina stepped to the window, looking out at the sea. “We must be twenty fathoms down. I don’t like it, being underwater in this cockleshell.”

“Why not?” Buckle asked, taking a seat at the table, running his hand across the smooth surface of the wood. “We’re floating, much as we do in the air.”

“You don’t like being submerged overmuch, either,” Sabrina said, removing her leather glove to press her finger at a water droplet on the window’s metal collar.

“Well, I’d wager submarining is less dangerous that zeppelineering,” Buckle said.

Sabrina peered at the droplet on her fingertip. “Aye, but a little hole in a gasbag won’t sink you in the sky.”

Sabrina showed the water droplet to Welly, who looked amused. Welly always responded well to Sabrina’s attentions, laughing at her dry humor because he was openly smitten with her.

Sabrina sat alongside Buckle, rubbing the droplet between her fingers. “I still doubt the Atlanteans shall be willing to admit us, considering the current antagonistic climate.”

“We are a diplomatic mission,” Buckle answered. “The current state of affairs will help us. The Atlanteans are looking for allies even if they are unwilling to admit it. They’re just as interested in self-preservation as we are.”

“It would have been good to have Elizabeth with us on this one,” Sabrina muttered.

Buckle nodded. “My sister does handle people well.”

“And if they have her in Atlantis, somewhere, sequestered away as your strange prophet suggests?” Sabrina asked.

“Then we shall recover her, one way or another,” Buckle responded.

“I still do not understand why you think she is in Atlantis if you are certain that the Founders kidnapped her,” Sabrina said. “Regardless of the jabberings of that moonchild you ran across, that old Shadrack.”

“Moonchildren don’t lie,” Buckle replied softly.

“It doesn’t mean they understand the truth,” Sabrina said.

“Lady Andromeda told me Elizabeth was the key to winning the war,” Buckle said, soft but pressing. “Lady Andromeda’s words, sober and cold as the dawn of day. And if there is the slightest possibility that Elizabeth is in Atlantis, within my grasp, then I have no choice but to seize the opportunity.”

“You do understand that Lady Andromeda is a politician and politicians—” Sabrina paused, looking behind Buckle.

Buckle turned to see a tall, thin woman bending in through the hatchway. Her skin was black and she wore the stained white smock of a cook. She only had one arm, the right sleeve of her blouse pinned up neatly against her shoulder. In her left hand she balanced a large metal tray with a teapot, cups, and neatly squared bits of food.

“Felix wants to see you served,” the one-armed cook said as she placed the tea service on the table. Her voice was accented in a way Buckle didn’t find familiar. He wondered if it bothered her to be constantly stooping through the low hatchways. Submariners tended to be small. “Do you want anything to eat?” she asked. “I have varieties of fish, fowl and sea vegetables.”

“What is a ‘sea vegetable?” Sabrina asked.

“Sea palm, kombu and agar pudding,” the cook said.

“No idea what those are,” Sabrina said with a toss of her head. “I’ll stick with tea.”

The tea tray was well supplied with cream and sugar cubes, and the liquid in the teapot smelled of a sweet spice that was new to Buckle. The tidbit plate was stacked with white crackers cradling greenish white gobs of something that looked like it might be fish eggs.

“For me, the tea shall most certainly suffice,” Buckle said.

“What fish have you got?” Welly asked.

“Fish,” the cook replied, prickly.

“What
kind
of fish?” Welly asked again.

“Cod,” the cook said.

“I’ll have some of that, then,” Welly said.

“Very well,” the cook sighed and took her leave, stooping low on her exit.

Buckle watched Welly pour tea for Sabrina and then himself.

Drumming her fingers on the table, Sabrina waited until the cook was long gone. “You still have not explained, dear Captain, “why you believe the words of a madman.”

“Not good enough?” Buckle asked, knowing it wasn’t.

“Good enough for me,” Sabrina replied, blowing on her tea. “But it feels like we are chasing a ghost.”

“I can’t tell you how, but I know she is there,” Buckle answered. “Lady Andromeda said that Elizabeth is the key to winning the war. That is why the Founders took her and that is why we must take her back.”

“Lady Andromeda is an Alchemist and I for one have never trusted the Alchemists,” Sabrina said, pouring one shot of cream into Buckle’s tea.

“And what clan outside of Crankshaft do you trust, dear sister?” Buckle asked.

“None,” Sabrina answered with a wry smile.

“I trust Lady Andromeda,” Buckle said.

“She does owe you her life, saving her from the Founders prison as you did,” Sabrina said, then turned to Welly with the sugar tongs ready. “And for you, Ensign?”

“Triple cream and triple sugar,” Welly said. “My mother trained me to like my tea far too sweet.” He smiled at his comment and then immediately bit his lip, as if perhaps he had offered too much for it to be appropriate. He wanted desperately to impress. “Many thanks, Lieutenant,” he added quickly. “I thank you with my utmost gratitude.”

“It wasn’t an offer of marriage, Ensign,” Sabrina replied. She shot Buckle an annoyed look. She hadn’t wanted Welly to accompany them on the trip, though she had never voiced her displeasure. “And if the Atlanteans refuse to admit us, Romulus—what is your plan?”

Buckle blew on his tea and shook his head.

V

LADY FORTUNE BETRAYS
THE DART

The awkward unfamiliarity of underwater transit soon melted away into a pleasant interlude. Buckle enjoyed the sensation of the submarine, the hum and vibration of its underwater steam engines—he would have liked to inspect them. Max would have loved to look at the engines as well.

Buckle’s teacup rattled on its saucer. The
Dart
’s engines were running hot, the boilers bursting with steam in case a quick escape was required, but the propellers were spinning slowly. The submarine’s pressure hull quivered, its metal vibrating with the energy of the engines in a fashion similar to the way the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
’s structure responded to the same forces. The
Dart
’s movement even felt familiar, the sensation of the underwater machine passing through resistance was something akin to an airship up against a sharp headwind. But there was also the omnipresent grip of liquidity, a grip tighter than the air. One might plummet to the depths, Buckle supposed, but it would be a far slower, smoother drop than if one fell out of the sky.

Finishing his tea down to the brown detritus of leaves in the bottom—the new and distinct flavor faintly similar to caramel—Buckle stood and strolled to the observation window alongside Sabrina. The muted sun was out now, high and far away above the sparkling surface, and the ocean bottom, a sandy desert populated by clumps of streaming seaweed, was alit. Everything had a blue-green tint to it except for the spots where the sunlight penetrated the ice in bright beams of aquamarine. Schools of fish, big and small and all with names unknown to Buckle, appeared, whirled and vanished in rippling typhoons of silver, black or yellow.

The
Dart
skimmed over a deep, narrow trench. Visibility was good, perhaps a half mile, but everything vanished into the wavering murk beyond that.

Sabrina looked at Buckle and smiled. The crimson ringlets of her hair looked even redder in the mix of greenish ocean illumination and the glow of the observation deck lamp. “I do believe that we shall gain entry into Atlantis,” she said. “Though I don’t trust Captain Felix to be there when it’s time to leave.”

“You think he’ll skip out on us?” Buckle asked. “We paid for a two-way ticket.”

“Overpaid up front.”

“I wasn’t in the mood to bid and barter,” Buckle whispered. “We’d wasted enough time with that little robot making us chase our own tail.”

“Ah, our dear Penny Dreadful. She is so certain of herself, is she not?”

“I’m afraid its nuts and bolts have been rattled far too many times,” Buckle sighed. “I have no idea what I shall do with it.”

“She’s an orphan like you and I,” Sabrina said.

Buckle cleared his throat. The tea had a sweet aftertaste but it also gummed up the windpipe. “If it was human I would concur. But it’s not.”

“What do you plan to do? Jettison her into the ocean?”

“That would save everyone a great deal of trouble, I suspect.”

Sabrina laughed. “You are not so heartless, Romulus. Machine or not, she has the heart of a little girl.”

“Oh, I would most gladly fire that thing out of a cannon,” Buckle said, but he didn’t mean it.

Sabrina nodded with a grin. “Of course you would.”

“I would most certainly not like to be shot out of a cannon,” Penny Dreadful said mournfully in its all-too-childlike voice, its machine eyes glowing from the forward bulkhead where it stood in the shadows—the automaton seemed to like to hover in the darker corners of whatever room it was in. “I know that I was unable to locate the surface entrance to Atlantis, but I assure you I shall prove my worth to you as a traveling companion on this quest. I shall.”

“Alright, then,” Buckle said. He felt bad. He would never have thought the automaton would be able to hear his whispers to Sabrina. There was a lot about the Dreadful that Buckle didn’t know—its capacities, motivators, flaws—and he didn’t like it.

Sabrina’s green eyes narrowed at the ocean. “There it is, I think.”

Buckle followed Sabrina’s gaze and he saw, far off in the fluctuating murk of the depths, the pale suggestion of lights, many lights, curving, undulating, the soft yellow emanations of an underwater city. “Aye,” he whispered, in awe of such a thing.

Penny Dreadful stepped to the window and pressed its hands to the glass. “Home,” it said in a low, metal voice that was almost a purr. “Home.”

Sabrina took a deep breath and said, “Yes, well, I don’t relish the idea of being stuck down here at the mercy of the fish people.”

“It is a good place,” Penny Dreadful said quickly, its metal fingers clicking as it planted them on its hips. “It is a wonderful city, white and full of light, the new civilization built upon the old human civilization. You shall see. You shall see.”

“It does seem to exude a great deal of illumination,” Welly said, arriving at the window.

“That is the greatest invention of the Atlanteans: the liquid-bound light, the luminiferous aether,” Penny Dreadful said.

“The luminiferous aether?” Sabrina asked.

“You shall see,” Penny Dreadful replied.

“There!” Sabrina said, in a near shout, thrusting a finger towards the fore. “A submarine. A submarine!”

Emerging from the currents, perhaps five hundred yards off the
Dart
’s port side, materialized the front of a large underwater machine. It was of bulbous construct with a large circular window framed by two small ones on each side, all flickering with the dull orange glow of seal-oil lanterns. The black hull loomed behind, oval in shape, with two horizontal fins sweeping out on each flank. Four torpedo tube hatches lurked under the nose; they were dark and Buckle figured that meant they were flooded and ready to fire. “Is it a Founders craft?” Buckle asked, but already he was certain that it was.

“We have to assume it is,” Sabrina said.

Penny Dreadful clanked alongside Buckle, peering out the window. “It is,” Penny Dreadful said, though Buckle did not trust its judgment anymore.

“Have they seen us?” Welly asked.

“The submarine is coming straight for us,” Sabrina said. “Intercept course.”

“I think Captain Felix described them as ‘submersibles’, Lieutenant.” Welly offered.

“Shut up, Welly,” Sabrina snapped.

“The question is, has Felix seen her yet?” Buckle said.

“Torpedo!” Sabrina shouted, pointing. “Coming straight down the beam!”

Buckle saw it, a small round green-brown dot spewing a long trail of rising bubbles behind, bearing down on them at considerable speed.

A warning klaxon rang through the ship. The approaching submarine rose out of view as the
Dart
, deck angling, engines throttling up to a pounding roar, dove into the blackness of the chasm below.

VI

NEPTUNE’S RIFT

A sheer wall of uneven blue rock blurred past the
Dart
’s observation window as the small submarine plunged at a steep angle.

“To hell with tea time,” Buckle shouted, gripping the window frame. “Let us see to circumstances on the bridge!” Angling his center of gravity back to compensate for the
Dart
’s forward pitch, he swung his way out of the observation cabin and into the main passageway. He arrived in the control room to see the black maw of the rift looming in the windows. Felix, Rachel and Kishi manned their stations, feet planted wide, spines stiff against the backs of their jackets. Another crew member, a fair-skinned woman wearing a black beret, hunched over a brass tubed sound-collecting device with a pair of mufflers clamped against her ears.

“Both all ahead flank!” Felix ordered. “Set diving planes to maximum.”

“Aye, Captain,” Rachel responded. “Planes at maximum.”

“What have we here?” Buckle shouted over the rumble of the engines and propellers.

“We are cursed,” Felix shouted back. “I’ve never seen so many submarines in one place. We dodged three Founders boats before the fourth one spied us, we did. We’ll shake this one off in the Rift.”

“You said you could outrun them,” Sabrina said, clambering in beside Buckle.

“My edge in speed shan’t be much,” Felix replied. “And I cannot outrun torpedoes.” He turned to the woman with the beret and headgear. “Listen for those fish, Gustey.”

“Be quiet, then,” Gustey replied, clamping her earphones tighter.

“Is your sea craft capable of greater depths than that of the enemy?” Buckle asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Kishi said. “The Founders boats can submerge deeper than we can, though nowhere as quickly. We have the advantage in rate of descent and endurance, for they cannot remain down for long.”

“How long?” Buckle asked.”

“Forty minutes, perhaps fifty if they want to choke,” Felix said, snapping a pair of levers above his head. “Worry not, zeppelineer—we’ve dodged them before. Once we’re under the gloom we can find a place, a nook, to nestle and hide. The big Founders boats are coal pigs. They must soon return to the surface to exchange atmosphere and vent exhausts. We can stay down for six hours, perhaps six and a half if we risk it with masks. We can’t outgun him but we can outlast him. Once he surfaces we’ll finish our run to Atlantis.”

Water erupted from the periscope housing, streaming down into the well. Buckle stared at it with apprehension.

“Don’t mind that,” Kishi said with a smile.

“Six degrees down to starboard,” Felix said, nudging his rudder wheel. The sheer, black face of the rift wall slipped past the windows. The sunlight was dissipating and being replaced by murky shadows. “Watch the trim.”

“Torpedoes coming out of tubes!” Gustey shouted. “Two propellers coming on fast, rear port quarter.”

“Hard a starboard!” Felix howled, spinning the helm wheel.

The submarine lurched to the right. Buckle grabbed hold of a map table as the deck angled.

“Can’t you shoot back?” Sabrina asked. “Haven’t you got stern guns, er, torpedo tubes?”

“Afraid not, girl,” Felix replied, his jaw tight as he held the wheel pinned as far to the right as its swing would let him. “A blockade runner like the
Dart
is all engines and propellers in the arse. No room for stern fish.”

“Two torpedoes passing to port!” Gustey shouted.

Buckle saw two long tubes whiz past the left bridge window, rusted metal columns fifteen feet long, their sharp noses festooned with fuses, tails whirring with double propellers as they whirled past into the chasm.

“No explosions,” Gustey reported.

“Good call, Gustey,” Felix said. “Keep your ears open. There shall be more.”

“Aye,” Gustey replied.

“He’s not setting timers,” Kishi muttered. “Interesting.”

“He wanted a lucky shot,” Felix said. “It’s difficult to aim on the dive.”

“Can they still see us?” Buckle asked.

“He’ll get a few glimmers of us at this depth and distance,” Felix replied. “But it’ll be enough to let him know where we are. He wants to crack us before we reach the gloom. The throat of Neptune’s Rift narrows considerably at this depth and his boat needs far more maneuvering space than ours.”

“Turn to port in three, two, one”—Rachel stared at an instrument which was a strange combination of illuminated chart and two hourglasses, one of which she turned upon speaking her last word—“now!”

Buckle saw the face of a cliff emerge head-on from the darkness. Felix pinned the helm wheel to the right. “Hard a starboard,” Felix said calmly. “Edge of the chasm.”

The towering wall of sea moss and granite slid past the
Dart
and her nose found open water once again.

“That was close,” Sabrina muttered. “And awfully fast.”

“Ah, plenty of buffer,” Felix said. “The Rift run is timed down to inches and seconds, even adjusted for varying depths.”

Again and again, Rachel shouted instructions for Felix and he whipped the helm around, repeatedly veering the
Dart
away from collisions with the sea cliffs.

There’s what an abundance of propellers gets you
, Buckle thought.
A brilliant rate of turn
.

Felix turned to Kishi. “Depress diving planes to fifteen degrees. Let’s get under the light.”

“Acknowledged.” Kishi pushed the controls on the diving planes as she kept her gaze fixed on a depth meter, a glass instrument set in a wooden frame carved with angels. The needle swept toward the red section of the dial.

A crew member’s voice rolled out of a chattertube hood. “Enemy still on our stern, Captain. Two hundred yards. He’s turned on his lamps.”

“The sore bastard is coming on fast,” Felix muttered, spinning the helm wheel. “Hard a’ port. Flood all tanks.”

“Flooding all tanks, aye,” Kishi replied.

The
Dart
heaved to the left, banking so sharply Buckle had to take hold of a rail or tumble across the deck. He caught a glimpse of the Founders boat out of the corner of the port window, the black, oblong shadow of the submersible between the dark, irregular cliffs of the Rift with the bright ocean surface shimmering above. The surface looked so very far away now. The dark bow of the submersible held two yellow lanterns encased in lensed apparatus which focused their light somewhat, like the glowing eyes of a huge squid.

A pipe at Buckle’s left hand burst, spraying water.

“Six hundred feet and descending,” Kishi said casually. “Approaching our depth rating.”

“I know what our depth rating is,” Felix grumbled.

“They’re trying to crack this little tin can,” Sabrina said to Buckle.

“Ah, she’s good for it, and at least a hundred feet more,” Felix retorted as Kishi pressed the
Dart
straight down the maw of the rift where there was nothing but darkness.

“I assume you’ve run her this deep before,” Buckle said.

“Something like that,” Felix answered. “Slippery fish—this is how we earn our money, Captain. Once we get our arses under the gloom they won’t be able see us from above anymore.”

“Torpedoes!” Gustey shouted, clamping her hands on her headphones. “Two props—coming straight into our baffles!”

“Damn it!” Felix snapped, turning to Kishi. “Take us down to six-seventy, now!

“Six hundred and seventy, aye!” Kishi said as she depressed her diving planes. A new tension in her voice made Buckle uncomfortable.

“Torpedoes passing overhead,” Gustey said, removing her headphones.

Buckle heard the distant drumming of torpedo propellers and shared a worried glance with Sabrina.

“They’re close,” Felix said softly. “Let’s hope they haven’t had the sense to set their timers.”

Buckle’s stomach rose into his mouth as he felt the
Dart
dropping fast, her metal flanks creaking against the pressure. He heard the muffled thump of an underwater explosion, followed almost instantly by the hammer force of its concussion. The
Dart
was flung to starboard and everyone and everything in her was hurled to the right.

Buckle slammed against a bulkhead, taking a blow to his right cheek as he fell. He scrambled to his feet. The sea lantern bounced in the stream of a ruptured steam pipe, fluttering as its oil either sloshed away from the wick or swamped the feeder valve.

“Seawater! I smell seawater!” Penny Dreadful cried out.

“What do you care, robot?” Felix scowled. “You can walk home!”

“We’ve stopped!” Rachel shouted.

Buckle realized Rachel was right. The forward momentum, the floating cut of the
Dart
, was gone. The deck no longer vibrated nor the air hummed with the rumble of the engines. She was drifting into a slight yaw to port. The hot metallic smell of overheating boilers and coal fumes assaulted Buckle’s nostrils.

“Propulsion has lost power, boilers on overload,” Rachel announced, pointing to a set of glass-plate gauges at her engineering station. The boiler pressure needles rattled at the red end of their measures.

“We’re drifting to port,” Kishi said. “Losing steerage.”

“Awwwright.” Felix steadied the deck with a swing of the helm wheel. “Keep your heads. We ain’t food for the fishes quite yet.”

“Boilers are off-line, Captain!” a voice gasped from the chattertube. “The damned hit shook ‘em loose and bent the shafts with ‘em. We had a fire but we put it out. We must purge pressure and shut boilers down or they’ll explode!”

Buckle wanted to take command. It was his instinct to do so. The fate of himself and his officers should be in his hands. But he held himself back, though he slowly bit through his tongue in frustration. This was Felix’s boat and Buckle was no submariner. It was time for the
Dart
’s captain to earn his money.

“Damn it to hell!” Felix shouted into the chattertube hood. “Do it, then. Shut ‘em down before they send us out of this world and into the next.”

“Torpedoes in the water!” Gustey shouted, her headgear back on.

Buckle looked up at the ceiling, at the dripping pipes, as if he could see through them, see what was coming, see the outlines of the torpedoes against the ocean sky.

“Of course,” Felix muttered calmly. “Well, there’s only one thing for it now. Take us down, Kishi. Vent the safety tanks. Drop us like a stone to eight hundred.”

“But we are already exceeding maximum depth,” Kishi said, growing more frightened. “We’re already in the dysphotic. He can’t see us.”

“He knows where we are.” Felix replied grimly. “Take us down. And on the double quick.”