Arabella of Mars (28 page)

Though the news was not unexpected, Arabella's heart fell. “I understand, sir.” But she knew that
Diana
was a tight, efficient machine with no room for nonfunctioning parts. “So what will be my position on board ship?”

“Captains in the service of the Honorable Mars Company are permitted a certain number of paying passengers as personal dunnage, so long as they can be accommodated in the captain's quarters. I do not usually exercise this privilege myself, but in this case I have instructed the purser to list you as my passenger. Although,” he added parenthetically, “I have never before heard of a passenger joining the voyage in mid-air.”

“Thank you, sir. At what rate?” Passage to Mars, she knew, was frightfully expensive.

“Captains are permitted to set their own tariff for passage, at whatever rate the traffic will bear.” He raised a finger. “I am setting your rate at three hundred pounds. Plus forty for food and wine.”

Arabella swallowed hard at the size of the sum, though Michael would surely pay it … if he yet lived.

“Furthermore, I am hiring you, out of my own purse, as a consultant on matters of clockwork and navigation, at a rate of one hundred and eighty pounds per week.”

Her jaw dropped at the idea, then dropped still further at the impossible generosity of the compensation. When multiplied by the number of weeks remaining in the voyage …

She closed her mouth, a small smile appearing on her face in acknowledgement of the captain's cleverness. “Which leaves me with twenty pounds in credit when we arrive at Mars.”

“Exactly. Minus the cost of your clothing, of course, including the rather fetching frock you are wearing now.” He consulted a paper. “Two pounds, one shilling, and eightpence, all told.”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Quinn insisted.” He shrugged.

Mind reeling from her many recent reversals, Arabella was left with one question. “Could you not have done this when I first signed on?”

He shook his head. “To take on a ragged, beardless boy as a consultant at such an exorbitant rate would raise questions on my judgement. But a well-bred, well-read young woman of quality?” Again he shrugged. “Such an appointment is within the purview of a captain's eccentricities.” He steepled his fingers. “So … is this arrangement acceptable to you, Miss Ashby?”

“Yes, sir.” She folded briefly in the air, a sketch of a curtsey. “Thank you, sir, for your generosity.”

“You are welcome, Miss Ashby. Now”—he took a breath and straightened himself in the air—“I am afraid I must impose upon you.”

“Sir?” Her heart began to flutter in her throat, and she chided herself for girlishness.

“The wretched business just concluded has put us several days further behind in our already delayed voyage, and we must proceed to Mars with all deliberate haste.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, ducking her head to hide her foolish disappointment. She turned to leave, wishing nothing more than to escape the great cabin as quickly as possible.

“You misunderstand, Miss Ashby.” She paused, hand on the latch, and turned back to face him. His expression was serious. “I require you to work out a course for us, a minimum-time transit from our current position to Fort Augusta, whilst I appraise the readiness of the ship and remaining crew. I expect a sailing order within the hour.”

To her own surprise, Arabella felt her face break into a broad grin. “Aye, aye, sir,” she said—then, with a start, she ducked her head and covered her mouth. “I mean, certainly sir, I will endeavor to comply.”

“Carry on, Miss Ashby.” He nodded to her, then to Aadim. “Your navigator.”

As was often the case, she was uncertain to whom that comment had been directed. But Aadim's glass eyes seemed to glitter with mirth.

*   *   *

After the course had been worked out and the ship got under way again, Arabella found herself with something she had never before had on
Diana
: time on her hands with nothing to do. Lacking duties, a station, even a bunk—the carpenter had not yet finished fitting out a corner of the great cabin as a sleeping berth for her—she was reduced to floating in a corner of the weather deck and trying to stay out of the way.

The only other time she had been a passenger, traveling with her mother and sisters from Mars to Earth, she had spent most of the voyage locked in her cabin, seething at the injustice of her imprisonment and her unwanted transportation. Lacking both information about and any particular interest in the airman's life and duties, she had learned little and experienced nothing. But now, having been an airman herself for so many weeks, she understood much of the activity that streamed past her on all sides. Decks were holystoned, sails set, brass polished in a constant smooth pavane of industry that seemed to mock her inactivity.

Though her life as Arthur Ashby had been brief, arduous, and often unpleasant, she found now that she missed it terribly.

The ship's bell sounded, eight bells in the forenoon watch, and the watch above divided themselves into their messes for dinner. With great fondness and sadness Arabella saw her former messmates—Gosling, Snowdell, Taylor, Young, and dear, dear Mills—gathering and laughing together as they descended the ladder. How she wished she could join them.

They did not even seem to see her. She had turned into something like an officer or a capstan—a piece of the ship's furniture, an obstacle to be saluted, polished, or worked around.

But, she gradually realized, one of the men did see her, and was hanging back as the rest of the larboard watch descended to the upper deck for dinner.

Gowse.

The burly, broken-nosed airman removed his cap from his head, clutching and twisting it in his meaty hands as he drifted over to Arabella. “Ashby,” he said, and tugged his forelock like a footman. “
Miss
Ashby, I mean.”

This was the first time they had truly seen each other since the chaos after the mutiny's end. Arthur Ashby would have clapped Gowse on the shoulder, shaken his hand, and thanked him heartily for what he had done.

“Mr. Gowse,” said Arabella, and acknowledged him with a nod.

“I…” Gowse paused, mangling his already-beaten hat still further as he gathered his thoughts. He did not meet her eyes. “I suppose I should be shamed of meself, for bein' beat by a girl.” Then he did look up. “But I'm not. Ye were very brave there, with Binion holdin' his pistol on you and all, and ye were brave in that fight too. If that's the kind of girl it takes to beat me, well then I suppose I'm still right enough.”

Arabella smiled at Gowse's embarrassed sincerity. “You are quite right enough as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Gowse, and I am honored that you treated me as a friend when I needed one.”

Gowse crammed his battered cap back on his head. “Ye still are a friend to me, sir,” he said. “Ma'am. Miss.”

“Ashby will do, I suppose,” she replied. “It is still my name, after all.”

“Ashby then.” Gowse grinned and sketched a salute, then ducked down the ladder to join the rest of his mess.

*   *   *

With Gowse's departure, Arabella found herself at a loss. Surely she could no longer mess with the men, yet she had no idea where she
would
eat. But Watson soon appeared on deck, saying, “With the captain's compliments, Miss Ashby, you are invited to join the officers for dinner.”

Arabella soon found herself at a table in the great cabin—a table she'd often set up, as captain's boy, but had never seen set with food. The officers gathered round, each bowing to her with a deference that would have been entirely incomprehensible even one day earlier, then fitted their legs into the leather straps on its underside to present a semblance of seated manners. After some embarrassed confusion, the straps at Arabella's place, to the captain's right hand, were fastened together into a single, longer strap that passed beneath her skirted thighs.

The cook's boy, whom Arabella had never before seen in a buff coat, now served the officers their dinner. The fare was much finer than that given to the men, but the portions were smaller, the number of courses greater, and the ceremony entirely different. Rather than the current captain of the mess calling “Who shall have this?” the captain carved the joint and portioned it out himself.

It seemed to Arabella that the system used by the men was actually superior. A captain who was less than scrupulously fair could easily create discord by apportioning the meat unevenly. But, as she'd known he would be, Captain Singh was unfailingly precise, and each one present received an equitable share of the meat, beans, and pudding.

Some part of her, she realized, had hoped that she might have a slightly larger or choicer portion, as an indication of the captain's feelings toward her. But to even hope for such a thing, she chided herself, was foolish. He was the captain of this ship, and as such could show no undue favor to any one.

The conversation was strained, at first. The officers, recently freed from imprisonment by mutineers, had much of import to discuss, but plainly held themselves back for the sake of Arabella's tender ears, restricting their talk to such safe topics as the weather and the set of the sails.

Arabella did her best to make herself small and silent, to stay out of the way as she had when she'd been captain's boy. She did not wish to interfere in the running of the ship, and she hoped by listening to understand it better. But the same frock that made her invisible to the men made her all too visible to the officers, and they continued to defer to her no matter how devoutly she wished otherwise.

Finally she could stand the situation no longer. “Gentlemen,” she said, and set down her fork, fitting it into its clip on the table-top. “I appreciate your desire to respect my delicate sensibilities, but I must remind you that until very recently I served in your crew as an ordinary airman. I am just as eager as you are to see the mutineers dealt with, and as far as I am concerned you may discuss whatever topics you find necessary for the safe and efficient running of the ship without deference to me.”

An uncomfortable silence followed her words. Finally Stross, the sailing master, spoke up. “Whilst we recognize that you were … formerly, under an, er, assumed identity, a member of this ship's company, you must understand that the situation has changed.” He did not, she noticed, meet her eyes. “And we must all keep in mind that any … conversational liberties taken in your presence under that previous … pretense, were in fact inappropriate at the time, even though none of
us
were aware of it.” On that word “us” he did look pointedly, perhaps even accusingly, in her direction. “So I must, on behalf of the officers and crew, apologize to you for those previous improprieties.” He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to his roast. “Furthermore, I believe that we should continue to moderate our words and behavior in your presence … in deference to your sex, if not to your personal desires.” He looked around the table. “I believe I speak for all of the officers and crew in this?” No one contradicted him, though the captain's face betrayed a great deal of discomfort.

A quiet whir and click from the far corner drew Arabella's attention. It was Aadim, whose head had tilted and eyebrows lowered in an apparent expression of negation or disapproval. But Aadim was only an automaton, and as such carried even less influence in this company than Arabella herself.

If such a thing were possible.

Arabella's gaze fell to her own plate. Suddenly the lovingly prepared joint of beef and Yorkshire pudding seemed overly rich, and entirely unappetizing. “I am terribly sorry to have discomfited you,” she said, looking straight at Stross's averted eyes, “and, on behalf of my
sex
, I accept your apology for any improprieties inadvertently committed due to my
pretense
.” She paused a moment to calm her breathing, though tension still clamped her teeth together. “Furthermore, I find that I am no longer hungry.” She undid the strap beneath her thighs and, with as much dignity as she could muster, extracted her legs and her floating skirt from beneath the table. “Good evening,
gentlemen
.”

She managed to keep the tears from her eyes until the door of her little closet had closed behind her. Even then, though, with the officers just the other side of a thin partition of
khoresh
-wood, she had to keep her sobs silent.

*   *   *

Two days later, Arabella floated before Aadim, watching the dials on his desk as his clockwork whirred and ticked through another course correction. The map of Mars was spread out before him, his pointing finger resting on Fort Augusta; though Mars's turbulent Horn was smaller and calmer than that of Earth, navigating through it was still tricky, and frequent small corrections were required if
Diana
hoped to land at the port itself rather than hundreds of miles away.

The many corrections were, she must admit, rather a blessing to her, as they provided her an excuse to spend time alone with Aadim. The clockwork navigator might not be much of a conversationalist, but unlike the officers and men, his behavior toward her had not changed with her clothing. Even the captain, whose treatment of her had altered the least, sometimes seemed discomfited by her skirted presence.

She looked into the automaton's eyes; though they did not see, they seemed filled with a sort of animation, jittering slightly as the wheels within his cabinet spun. “I wish I could take you off the ship and show you Woodthrush Woods,” she said, finger tracing an area some inches from the fort. “That is my family's
khoresh
-tree plantation.” Though unmarked on Aadim's map, the spot was well-worn in Arabella's memory. The great manor house, the Martians' dwellings of fused stone, the long drying-sheds with their great coal-stores—in which she would sometimes hide, to her mother's great dismay—all sprang vividly into her mind's eye. “Khema used to take Michael and me to Fort Augusta nearly every week.”