Arachnodactyl (18 page)

The door nudged open. Wendy entered with two lanterns dangling from each hand. “Here you go. Do me a favor and wait until I’m above deck before you light these.”

Ikey motioned at the floor. “Set them down. Find some more.”

After Wendy set them down, he placed his hands on his hips. He regarded Ikey a moment. His eyes were wide, his breath shallow and quicker than usual. Then he turned and left.

Ikey moved the lanterns to the rack and removed their lamps. He extended each wick as far as he could and arranged the lanterns under the tanks. He fished a match from his pocket. Deep breath. He swiped the match against the grain of the floor.

The head flared, then settled back to its cap of orange flame.

A sigh of relief passed his tight lips. He touched the match to each wick. Tall flames shimmied up from the lanterns and licked at the bottom of each tank. If this worked, it wouldn’t do for flight. Or would it? Would an airship pitch and roll like a ship on the sea? The ones that sailed over the farm never appeared to. They always looked calm, placid, a lovely place to be.

Ikey flicked out the match, then stood. It didn’t matter. The ship was moored to the ground. And above him loomed the dome of the hangar. The ship needed only to take up the slack of its ropes and hover above the cement floor.

When Wendy returned with another handful of lanterns, he shook his head at Ikey’s modifications to the hydrolysis converter. “May God save fools and small children.” He looked at Ikey. “You’re incredibly lucky that didn’t blow up in your face.”

Ikey took the lanterns from Wendy. “Bring more. But first, where are the others, the carpenters? Are they still working in crew quarters?”

Wendy nodded.

“Tell them to check the moorings, and then get everything off this ship that isn’t nailed down. All extra weight. Ballast. Their tools. Lumber. Everything.”

Wendy smirked. “They’re not going to care for that.”

“Tell them. Tell them it’s your idea if you have to, but tell them.”

“I think whoever gave you that shiner may have hit you too hard.”

Ikey crossed his arms over his chest. “Get more lanterns.”

Wendy turned to the door. “Get more lanterns,” he mocked. “I should be getting a bloody undertaker is what I ought to be doing.”

He slammed the door shut behind him. Ikey turned back to the hydrolysis converter. The flames continued to lick at the tanks. The brine inside appeared more cloudy than usual. Ikey touched a hand to the glass tank and held it there. More fire would be needed yet.

As Wendy brought more lanterns, Ikey arranged them underneath the converter and set them to burning as hot as he could get them. On his fourth trip, Wendy sat two lanterns down and announced that was it. He had every lantern in the hangar. Ikey took them and asked Wendy to fetch some oil.

“I’m not your bloody servant boy,” Wendy said.

Ikey removed the lamps from the last two lanterns. “If we run out of oil before the ship lifts, you can explain to Admiral Daughton why you brought me every lamp in the hangar and watched as I lit them.”

“If this doesn’t work—”

“You’ll be rid of me.”

“Admiral Daughton will be rid of both of us.”

Ikey slid the last two lanterns into place. That made 14 in all. The dampness of his shirt embraced the heat baking off of them. They warmed his chest, his hands.

Ikey looked back at Wendy. “You want me to tell Admiral Daughton I overpowered you?”

Wendy barked a laugh. “That’ll be the day.”

Ikey lit the last two lanterns. “It’ll work.” He put his hand to the tank and snapped it back. The tank was hot. Too hot to touch for long. “If you get me some oil.”

“You get the oil.”

“I don’t know where the oil is,” Ikey said as he stood up.

“Ask Rob. He and the rest of the crew are keen to speak with you.”

“Cross left me in charge. My place is here.”

Wendy spat into the space between them. “The only thing Cross left you in charge of was making an ass of yourself. And you’re doing a brilliant job, but I’m done with it. You want some bloody oil, you get it.”

Ikey took a step forward. “I know damn well why Cross put me in charge. We’re going to show him up.”

“Look, I’ve been happy to hand you enough rope to hang yourself with, but no more. This isn’t a daffy Frenchman’s sightseeing balloon. This isn’t going to work.”

“What do you care?” Ikey called out. A patina of sweat broke out on his skin. “You’re wanting me to fail as well. Let’s make sure I do.” Ikey swept his arms up into the air. “A colossal fail! The biggest fail. What have you got to lose?”

Wendy shook his head. “You’re mad. A complete nutter.”

Ikey’s heart thudded in his chest. The blood shoved its way through his arteries. He took a step forward. “Get the oil.”

Wendy glanced at the converter, then back to Ikey. “Piss off.”

Ikey’s back straightened. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “You bastard,” Ikey cursed. “You know this is going to work. You know I’m right. You’re trying to sabotage me as well.”

Wendy sneered and looked away. He lifted his hands before him, palms out as he refused to have anything more to do with it. “I’ve had it with this rubbish. I’m going to Admiral Daughton right now.”

Wendy turned towards the door.

Ikey stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder.

Wendy spun back around, fist raised. “Touch me again, and I’ll do more than give you a black eye.”

“If that’s what it takes.” Ikey raised his own fists.

Wendy grinned an oily grin. “You won’t last three minutes.”

Ikey thought of the shock and hurt last night as he lay rolled in the quilt. He thought of the collective poundings taken from his dad. “I’ll last as long as I have to.”

Wendy put his weight back on his right foot. “Well then, bruiser, show me what you’ve got.”

Ikey stood his ground, fists cocked and ready as Wendy shifted his weight back and forth. His fists bobbed like buoys on the sea. He knew nothing about fighting. He knew nothing of the simple brutality of walking up to a person and swinging a fist like a mace, the face a red and ravaged linchpin as the other fist swung around for the counterblow while the recipient cowered back, hands over his head or flinching to the site of the latest blow, too late to do anything more than look stupid and pointless and helpless.

Heat seeped over Ikey. The air sat in his lungs, heavy and metallic. He gritted his teeth. The bubbling of the converters and the whining of the turbines may have issued from him.

This must have been what his dad felt the instant before the powder keg of his rage exploded.

“Come on, pussy,” Wendy teased. “What are you waiting for?”

“You.”

“I’m right here.” Wendy fluttered his fingers.

Bait. Ikey eased a breath through his clenched teeth. If he himself didn’t throw the first punch, they’d stand in the engine room all day, locked into posturing and trading insults. He stifled a smile.

“Come on, you blasted coward,” Wendy said.

Ikey said nothing. His eyes locked on Wendy’s as he resisted the urge to glance back at the converter, check on the lanterns.

“Yeah,” Wendy said, “I thought so.” He lowered his fists a few inches and stepped back. “You think you’re big enough to give orders, but you haven’t the spine to back them up.”

Wendy lowered his fists.

Ikey stepped to his left.

Wendy’s fists went back up in a flash.

Ikey traced a quick circle around Wendy until he stood with his back to the door. “If you’re not getting oil, you’re not leaving until Cross gets back.”

“And if I want to leave, you’re going to stop me?”

“You’ll have to go through me.”

“Easily arranged.”

Wendy opened his fists, but kept his hands before him, fingers loose and ready to grab anything. He stepped forward.

Ikey stiffened his back and raised his fists. He may have miscalculated Wendy’s tolerance for an all-day standoff.

“I’m going through that door,” Wendy said and approached.

Ikey drew back his fist, inhaled, and clamped down on his breath in order to heat it with a pent-up rage, convert it to steam and drive it through the piston of his arm.

Glass rolled across the wooden floor. It peppered the room with a chattering sound.

Both men glanced to the converter. One of the lamps rolled back and forth in a small arc, doling out its momentum until it lay still. Another lamp rolled back and forth in a semicircle towards aft.

Wendy and Ikey glanced at each other. Both of them bolted for the door.

Together, they raced down the hall and up the stairs. As they exploded onto the deck, cheers and whoops greeted them. Their feet thundered across the deck, and as they reached the bow, fresh cheers erupted from the crew who stood below. They called out their congratulations and pointed to a gap between the ship and the floor.

“She’s not all in the air yet,” Rob called up. “But I’ll be damned if I’ve ever been so happy to see a lady turn her nose up at me.”

I
key grasped
the deck rail in a white-knuckled grip and leaned over the edge. He flexed his knees in expectation of the ship bucking upwards. And then a wide grin of triumph plastered itself over his face. He turned to Wendy.

Wendy stood with a hand on the rail. The other hung limp at his side. He stared down at the crew who had resumed congratulating themselves. No smile graced his blank expression.

“We did it,” Ikey said. He stopped himself from slapping Wendy on the back.

“We’re not off the ground yet,” Wendy said as he turned his gaze to the deck. “But yeah, it looks like it.”

“Thanks for bringing the lanterns.”

Wendy nodded. “I’m going to check on the converter. Make sure it’s still running properly.”

As he turned away, Ikey inhaled sharply, ready to resume their standoff, but there was no point. The crew had witnessed his success.

Ikey turned to the crew below and told them to bring more lantern oil to the engine room. One of the younger men hurried for the drums sitting in a corner of the hangar.

The size of Ikey’s smile threatened to weigh the ship down again. He turned his attention to the envelope above. He expected to see it abnormally swollen, or to feel waves of heat basting the deck. Instead, it looked the same as always. Satisfied, he stepped to the prow and tried to feel the ship lifting him as the heated hydrogen tugged it off the Earth’s surface. The thought of standing at the prow and watching it break through clouds like waves filled his head. He drew in a deep breath, chest swelling.

It was a shame Rose would never see such things.

The smile on his face dampened. He thought of her voice, the cold tone of it as she rejected the pity of others. Ikey closed his eyes. What a fool he had been to think Rose was anything more than what she was. How could a machine be made to feel? He hadn’t been using his head.

But now he was. And he’d show Cross. He opened his eyes. Instead of clouds and sky like an ocean, he stared at the hangar door a dozen yards ahead.

Something thumped on the deck. Ikey turned around to see where one of the crewmen had placed a pail of oil on the deck, and was swinging his leg over the rail.

“Great,” Ikey said as he hurried toward the pail, eager to finish what he had started.

To Ikey’s surprise, Wendy became cooperative, if a bit sullen. Together, they kept the lanterns burning, and before long, the
Kittiwake
’s aft quarter lifted off the ground as well, and the ship hovered several feet in the air, held from the hangar ceiling by taut mooring ropes knotted to iron rings anchored in the cement floor.

The smile returned to Ikey’s face as he waited for Cross’s return, and it remained until the arrival of Admiral Daughton, who called for Cross.

Ikey and Wendy went above deck to greet the admiral, who stood beside the ship with his top hat in hand. He craned his neck back to the envelope above, then looked down to the gap between the ship and the floor. As they stood at the rail, Wendy told Admiral Daughton that Cross was off seeing to business with a coppersmith.

“I’ll bet he is,” Admiral Daughton said as he replaced his hat. “A coppersmith with a fondness for drink, no doubt. But regardless, congratulations to you and your crew. I’m quite surprised. I wasn’t expecting you to raise the ship so soon. How did you manage?”

As Ikey thought of how to present the idea, Wendy blurted out that they heated the brine solution.

“Heated? How?”

Wendy glanced at Ikey, swallowed, then looked back at the admiral. “Lanterns. We have a collection of lanterns heating the brine tanks.”

Admiral Daughton looked from Wendy to the envelope, and then back. “Lanterns. You mean to tell me you have open flames in the engine room?”

Wendy nodded.

Admiral Daughton stepped back and glanced fore to aft along the envelope as if he expected to find fire up there, lying in wait to consume them all.

Ikey leaned forward and gripped the rail. “That’s why Cross went to see the coppersmith. There’s a way to heat the gas without using open flames, but using the exhaust from the boiler.”

“So you two are trying to burn down the ship, then?”

Ikey stood up straight.

Admiral Daughton’s face flushed pink. “Whose blasted idea was this? Wait!” Admiral Daughton said and held up a hand. “Get down there and put out the flames this instant. You two imbeciles know this is full of flammable gas, right? You could kill us all.”

Ikey and Wendy hurried to the engine room.

“Good going,” Wendy said as he knelt down beside the converter. “I told you Admiral Daughton would be pissed.”

Ikey said nothing, but pulled a lantern out from under the converter and snuffed it. He had hoped to see Cross’s face when he got back and saw the ship hovering in the air. It seemed unlikely he’d get the chance now, but at least no one could deny that the
Kittiwake
had flown.

Once they snuffed the lanterns, and an acrid scent of burnt oil and wick filled the air, the two men returned to the deck and found Admiral Daughton standing in the same place, his hands held behind his back.

“Now whose hare-brained idea was this?” Admiral Daughton asked.

Wendy pointed at Ikey.

Ikey squared his shoulders. “It was mine.”

Admiral Daughton shook his head. “I might have guessed as much. If these other dimwits were capable of this, they would have done so already. Now get your arse down here.”

Ikey sucked in a slow breath, then descended the rope ladder. He made slow, sure steps over to Admiral Daughton. Wide space rested between the admiral and the exit. If Ikey avoided being grabbed, he could surely outrun the tubby man.

“Do you know the difference between a risk-taker and a fool?” Admiral Daughton asked.

Ikey shook his head.

“Then let’s hope you never find out,” Admiral Daughton said. “Can this method be adapted to not use open flame?”

“Cross is out—”

Admiral Daughton shushed him with a wave of the hand. “Cross is at Turk’s Head, and don’t tell me otherwise. I’m asking you. Can you adapt this method to not use open flame?”

Ikey nodded before thinking it through. There were multiple ways to heat a tank. He could think of something.

Admiral Daughton nodded. And smiled. “Excellent. Draw up a plan and present it to me tomorrow afternoon. Be sure to include a detailed list of the required materials and additional costs. Spare no expense.”

“But Cross—”

“To hell with Cross. He’s had his chance. I’ve been paying him to build me an airship, and all he’s done is anchor a bar stool. He’s finished.”

Admiral Daughton turned his attention back to the ship. “She’s a thing of beauty, isn’t she? I just never thought I’d see it so soon.”

He started to turn away, then paused. “You’re lodging with Cross, are you not?”

Ikey nodded.

Admiral Daughton smirked. “I can see where that might get a bit uncomfortable. How can you stand it there? Doesn’t his wife give you the willies?”

Ikey gritted his teeth. His hands drew up into fists.

“I’ll put you on a real salary,” Admiral Daughton said, “one that goes to you instead of your father. We’ll negotiate the details tomorrow, after I see your plans, but suffice it to say, if you want to lodge at a proper hotel, go ahead. Tell them I’ll settle your account.”

Ikey nodded.

Admiral Daughton took one more eyeful of the ship, grinned, and muttered something under his breath about the pounds before waddling off to the exit.

Ikey loosened his fists and worked his jaw. As Admiral Daughton left, he waited for the words to smash into him with all the weight of the
Kittiwake
relieved of its gas.

But a numbness enfolded him. He had a job. A real job. And he would never see Rose again.

“What was that about?” Wendy called from the deck.

Ikey turned around. Suspicion marred Wendy’s face.

“I’m replacing Cross.”

Wendy rocked back on his heels and pushed up the brim of his hat. His expression disappeared as if sucked up under the bowler. His face gave no sign of whether or not he thought the news good or bad.

“Cross isn’t going to care for that,” he finally said.

Ikey shook his head.

“You got any belongings over at Cross’s house? Anything you’re partial to?” Wendy asked. “You might want to get it now.”

Ikey nodded. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers. What would Rose say? And what would he say to her?

“Go on,” Wendy said. “I’ve got things here. I’ll put the crew back to work and tell Sharp to trade his shovel for a hammer.”

Ikey nodded again. Money. A salary. He could rent a proper room. Feed himself. Never go back to the farm again. Or take a post-chaise back to the farm and hand money over to his dad just to watch him take it from his hand.

Wendy drummed his knuckles on the deck rail and tapped out a nervous, sloppy beat. Whatever he waited for, he gave up on as he stepped away from the rail and descended the stairs.

Ikey looked up at the
Kittiwake
again. It hovered like a dream lassoed and harnessed. Rose would never see what he had accomplished. She’d never be able to step outside and lift her face to the sky, shade her brow with her hand, and see the airships passing overhead. Ikey could explain it, there in the dark, his words falling inadequate into his lap over the clicking of knitting needles.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. The words seemed so unnecessary. What did it matter to Rose that airships plied the sky, much less how they got up there? It wasn’t part of her world, her existence. It was what others did. The sighted. Their eyes put to use because they had them.

Someone cleared his throat.

Ikey opened his eyes.

“You all right?” Rob asked from beside the loading door. His fingers were threaded into his hip pockets, thumbs hooked over his belt.

Ikey nodded.

Before Rob said more, Ikey turned away and headed towards the exit, drifting along as if several feet of space separated him from the floor as well. Rose was nothing like the people about him, whether she was made of flesh and blood or iron and twine. She might as well be something altogether different; neither human nor machine, but a creature as alien to this world and the people in it as he was himself.

As he stepped out of the hangar, a light drizzle settled over Ikey’s skin and clothes. The town spread out before him. Off to his left, the sea sat gray and unimpressed with the town, the trawlers, the birds raking the sky overhead.

He could close his eyes and make it all disappear for a moment. There would be nothing except his breath and the drizzle on his skin like the ghosts of thousands of fingers combing through the heat rising off his body. The sounds were there: the growling of wheels on cobblestones; a chugging steam carriage; distant train whistle; birds. A hand bell rung in long, slow strokes at the end of a costermonger’s arm. Everything blended together with a twist of the mind and became nothing more than the senseless machinations of dozens of music boxes tuning into the quivering world.

Ikey inhaled deeply. Salt tanged the air. Coal smoke singed it. It sat down in his lungs like cold syrup.

Admiral Daughton’s words climbed out of the murk. He would be free of Cross. And set loose from Rose.

Ikey’s eyes opened on the world. He waited for the enormity of the situation to catch up, to crash down onto his shoulders, to pull and twist at his hair and kick at the backs of his knees until he fell to the ground.

But it didn’t come. He watched a bedraggled dog with damp, dark fur trot down the road, eager to be someplace else. The realization refused to strike.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and started toward Cross’s house.