The Aeronaut's Windlass (60 page)

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Gwen sighed. She stepped over to the cage and, before the engineer could object, slipped her slender arm easily between the bars, plucked up the wrench, and drew it back out again. She flipped it in her hand and offered it to him handle-first.

Journeyman eyed her, mustache bristling. Then he snatched the wrench and said, “You shouldn’t play with a ship’s systems. If you’d brushed your hand against the wrong arc, you’d have gotten the shock of your life.”

“That’s why I didn’t touch any of the active arcs,” Gwen replied calmly. “You’re only running power from the topmost bars at the moment, are you not?”

Journeyman’s eyebrows lowered, then rose. “Huh. You think you know something about ships, do you?”

“I know little about airships,” Gwen replied. “I do possess some small knowledge of their systems.”

“Sure you do,” the man said.

Gwen arched an eyebrow. “I know the topmost left-side bar is out of alignment by at least two degrees. You’re losing efficiency from it. Probably why the air’s so warm in here.”

The engineer squinted. “And why do you think you know that?”

“The tone,” Gwen said. “There’s a bit of a burr in it on that side.”

“Huh,” the man said. He pursed his lips and looked at her speculatively. Then he rose, grabbed the room’s eight-foot-high scaffold, and slid it into place over the power core. He climbed up on it and thumped around with the Haslett cage for a bit. Then he climbed back down again. “All better.”

Gwen tilted her head to one side and listened to the hum of the power crystal. “No,” she said. “You didn’t fix it. You put it out of alignment by at least another two degrees.”

The engineer might have grinned for an instant, though the mustache camouflaged it. He grunted, went back up the scaffold, and thumped around a bit more. “How’s that?”

“That’s done it,” Gwen replied.

Journeyman hopped back down from the scaffold, eyed her up and down for a second, and then flipped the wrench over in his hand and offered her the handle.

Gwen arched a brow and took it. “And what am I to do with this?”

“Saw which bolt I was working on, did you?”

“Yes.”

“So loosen it,” he said, “if you can.”

Gwen bounced the wrench lightly in her hand. If Captain Grimm and Benedict were gone with the men, they must have been heading to a fight—but she didn’t know where, and doubted her ability to run to catch up with them in her present condition. If she had to simply sit and wait for them to return, she might go mad.

She nodded, turned to the Haslett cage, and had the bolt loosened within seconds. Not because she was an expert so much as because she had smaller arms and hands and could work them into the available space much more easily than the engineer could.

“Right,” Journeyman said when she was done. “Back.”

She drew back and Journeyman threw the release on the lower array. The bottom half of the cage’s bars began to swing out, opening away from the crystal within the apparatus, like some kind of gleaming copper flower. Pale green light flooded the chamber, glowing out of the depths of
Predator
’s power core.

Gwen stared at the rich green crystal for a second. It didn’t have the proper jewel-faceted shape. It was instead formed into a much more natural-looking crystal, like a shaft of glowing emerald quartz, and then her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at. “God in Heaven,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” Journeyman replied. His tone was unmistakably smug.

“That’s a first-generation power core,” Gwen breathed. “Before they started developing facets. How
old
is it?”

“Few thousand years, at least,” Journeyman said.

“If it’s that old . . .” Gwen shook her head. Unlike lumin crystals or weapons crystals or cannon crystals or lift crystals, power crystals only grew more and more capable of efficiently channeling etheric energy. A crystal was rarely considered to be working in its prime before a century of use had worn it into better condition. If the crystal was as old as Journeyman claimed, it would be able to produce more electricity from less etheric energy than almost any crystal Gwen had heard of—which would mean that the ship could sail to more places, farther and farther from the main etheric currents, and do it more swiftly. “That is a tremendously efficient core,” Gwen said. “It should be in a Fleet ship.”

“Well, she ain’t,” Journeyman said. “And she ain’t going to be. She’s
Preddy’s
and that’s that.”

“Incredible,” Gwen said, shaking her head.

Journeyman’s chest swelled. “Ain’t she?” He squinted at her. “Where’s a little thing like you learn about ships’ systems?”

“From my mother.”

“Who’s your mother?”

“Helen Lancaster.”

Journeyman frowned for a moment. Then he blinked. “Lancaster?
Lancaster
-Lancaster, you mean? The vattery?”

“I’ve been learning about our products since I was old enough to speak,” Gwen said. “Including running system benchmarks on every crystal before we send it out, which means knowing how the systems work.”

“Those Lancasters.” Journeyman grunted. “Damn.” He seemed to come to a decision and nodded once. “I’m going to start kicking these pansies awake in a bit. You want to be useful, meanwhile? Captain got us a little bit of a lift crystal to replace our old one. The trim crystals are all in, but I still have to rig the main one. Could use someone with a good ear for that.”

“Which crystal?” Gwen asked.

“One of your new Mark IV-Ds.”

Gwen blinked at him once. “You misunderstand me, sir. I mean which crystal. Which one of the Mark IV-Ds?”

Journeyman’s mouth spread into a more recognizable grin this time. He nodded to the far end of the chamber, toward the ship’s suspension rig. “You tell me.”

Gwen went down to the rig to regard the crystal and whistled. “This is the one from the vat in section three, row two. It’s one of the best of the batch. God in Heaven, if you aren’t cautious, with that power core behind it this crystal could tear the ship apart.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Journeyman said.

“Which configuration are you planning for its cage?”

“Standard dispersal, maximum spacing,” Journeyman replied.

“What?” Gwen asked. “Why would you do that?”

“How else should I do it?” Journeyman snapped.

“Didn’t you read the owner’s manual?”

“
Manual?
See here, missy. I’ve been an etheric engineer since before you were born. I think I know how to handle a lift crystal.”

“Evidently you aren’t bright enough to do so, if you cannot read. We provide those manuals and specifications and procedures for a reason, you know.”

Journeyman scowled. “You do everything by the book, like everybody else, you get the same results as everybody else.”

“That’s the idea,” Gwen said in a dry tone.

Journeyman seemed to miss it. “That might be good enough for every other ship in the world, missy,” he said. “But that ain’t good enough for
Preddy
. I get ten to fifteen percent more out of her systems doing it my way.”

“What?” Gwen said. “That isn’t possible.”

“Maybe not in your workshops,” Journeyman said firmly. “But a ship in the open sky is different. You got to know how to treat her the way she likes.”

“Well, take it from me: She’s not going to like that dispersal pattern,” Gwen said. “The bottom hemisphere of the Mark IV-Ds is rigged with variable sensitivity. The closer to the positive end you get, the more powerful the crystal’s pathways are. You need to set your bars in an asymmetric configuration to maximize sensitivity. If you go with a standard hemisphere it will be too easy to dump too much current in. Before you know what happened, you’ll be watching that crystal fly to the moon while your ship falls. Which you would know if you’d
read the manual
.”

Journeyman ground his teeth. “Always improving things that don’t need improving,” he muttered. “Fine. Asymmetric. Show me.”

Chapter 50

Spire Albion, Habble Landing, Ventilation Tunnels

S
omeone shook Major Espira awake, and he blinked his eyes open to find Ciriaco standing over him, his weathered face set. “Sir. That woman’s here.”

Espira grunted and rose. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten, but it wasn’t much, and it included dreams he planned not to remember. He climbed to his feet from his bedroll, stiff from the cold spirestone floor. “Better ready the men,” he told the sergeant.

“Yes, sir,” Ciriaco said, and stalked off to do so. The warriorborn man’s arm, though still badly burned, was no longer held at an awkward angle, and as he moved away it swung naturally. Espira found himself wishing for a moment that his own family had carried some measure of warriorborn bloodlines. If he’d been born like Ciriaco, his back wouldn’t be so uncomfortable right now.

Of course, if he’d been born like Ciriaco, he wouldn’t be a major in the Auroran Marines, either.

Espira tugged on his jacket, straightened himself, and strode out of the private little side corridor he occupied in his position as the commanding officer. As he appeared, the men were already rising and gathering their weaponry and gear.

Cavendish and her pet monster were nearby, waiting. There was something tight and hard around the woman’s eyes. Sark looked as he always did, but Espira had worked with the warriorborn long enough to realize that the slight dilation to the pupils of Sark’s crooked eyes meant that he was tense and ready for battle.

He’d been hoping for blithe, arrogant confidence from Cavendish. Whatever business she had done with the Albions, it hadn’t gone precisely to her schedule. Whatever leverage she thought the hostages had given her must not have been enough. Espira gritted his teeth for an instant, then forced his jaw to relax. The lives of the two young women were worth a little less than nothing if Cavendish decided they had no value to her—and while he had no particular cause to dislike either of the young women, and would prefer to leave them bound and in place, to be found later, he still would cut the ladies’ throats himself rather than leave them in the hands of Cavendish or Sark.

“Madame Cavendish,” Espira said, bowing politely.

“Major,” Cavendish said. “I believe the time has come for us to act.”

Espira arched an eyebrow. “You think we should begin early?”

“I will signal the Armada, Major,” Cavendish said, a frosty edge to her tone.

The miracle of such rapid communication was all very well, Espira thought, but it wouldn’t make an airship move any faster if it wasn’t already in position. “If I may inquire as to why you believe precipitous action is required, madame?”

“I misjudged a man,” Cavendish said. “The same commander who defeated your men at the Lancaster Vattery.”

“He’s here?” Espira demanded. “And you did not see fit to tell us this fact?”

“He’s one of their Fleet washouts with a crew of privateers,” Cavendish said. “They aren’t professional soldiers, and their numbers have been significantly reduced—but they can make a great deal of noise before your men wipe them out, and they might sap some of your strength.”

“Where are they?”

“Judging by Captain Grimm’s confidence, they are coming here,” Cavendish replied. “Strike the primary and secondary targets and make for the extraction point. I want your men gone by the time they arrive.”

“And leave a large mobile force at large behind us?” Espira asked.

“I will attend to them,” Cavendish said. “They won’t be able to pursue. Where are the prisoners?”

Espira hesitated.

“Major,” Cavendish said between clenched teeth.

“The hallway we blocked off,” Espira said finally. He nodded down the proper tunnel. “Down there. What do you intend for them?”

“The same as I intend for the rest of the Spirearch’s merry band,” Cavendish said, looking away, her eyes lit with some bizarre emotion Espira could not identify. “Take your men and go, Major. If you value their lives, none of them will be standing in these tunnels five minutes from now.”

Espira frowned at the woman, but she did not return her gaze to his. Then he nodded, bowed again, and withdrew.