Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) (52 page)

“Then keep them safe,” Buckle said, turning to walk down the corridor. “Perhaps we shall have the opportunity to use them again.”

Buckle reached the door of infirmary cabin number three and rapped his knuckles across it.

“Pretty girls enter,” Ivan’s muffled voice came from within. “All others go away!”

Buckle swung the door open and stepped inside. The small infirmary chamber was dark despite a small buglight, where the fireflies glowed unenthusiastically inside the lantern glass.

“Hello, Ivan,” Buckle said brightly, even though he did not feel bright.

“Hello, Romulus,” Ivan said, his voice too raspy and weak to make Buckle comfortable. Ivan’s head and shoulders were propped up by a pillow as he lay on the bunk. Pushkin poked his fuzzy head in and out of the breast pocket of his white infirmary tunic.

“I heard you got a little crisped last night,” Buckle said. “But Fogg says you will be fine.”

Ivan smiled, at least with the side of his face that was not covered by bandages. All that was visible of him was his right eye, his nose, and the right side of his mouth. “I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days. Nothing worse than a bad sunburn here, really. Just need to rest up a bit.”

“Good to hear, old salt,” Buckle said as he sat on the edge of the bunk. “I would be most irritated if I had to try and find a new chief mechanic on this forsaken island.”

“I hear they are a penny a dozen anyway, Cap’n.” Ivan grinned and winced.

“You saved the entire ship, you know.”

“What? By letting a steampiper bomb go off in the middle of the forward gasbags?”

Buckle laughed. “No. You did not let them position the bomb. Had that happened,
inside
the stockings, we would all surely be fish food now.”

“Bah!” Ivan snorted. “I did nothing more than get myself blown up. If they make medals for that, I’ll let them pin one on me.”

“By the way, a repair team found that flea-bitten dead rat you call a hat,” Buckle announced. With a flourish, he pulled Ivan’s ushanka out of his pocket. The fur cap was singed and missing most of its left earflap, but he knew that would not matter so much to Ivan—he loved that damned hat.

Ivan grinned and winced again, planting the mangled ushanka on top of his head bandages. “My ushanka!” he exclaimed. “How am I looking, brother?”

“Like a true Russian mechanic.”

Ivan nodded and sighed. “Yes, I am looking spiffy. And right now the enthralling Holly Churchill, standing outside the playhouse back home, is wondering why I stood her up, and planning never to speak to me ever again.”

“I think she will give you a pass on this one.”

Ivan’s eyes turned serious. “How is the ship?”

“In one piece, more or less,” Buckle said, stepping to the door. “We’ll be back on our way in a matter of minutes.”

“It is a war coming, isn’t it, Romulus?”

Buckle paused. “Looks like it. So rest up, you crazy Bolshevik. You’re going to be needed.”

“Aye, Cap’n. Aye.”

TO THE END OF THE WORLD

W
HEN
B
UCKLE CAME DOWN THE
companionway into the piloting gondola, he found his bridge crew, indeed the entire airship, ready and waiting. Sabrina, Kellie, Welly, Nero, Max, De Quincey, and Wong all stood poised at their stations, along with Sergeant Scully and his blackbang rifle, posted to the gondola until the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
was safely off the ground. The great rent on the port side of the chamber was temporarily sealed with wood panels, a strikingly ugly backdrop to the elegance of the rest of the interior.

Everything was quiet as Buckle plugged in. His top hat gurgled, hissed, and steamed. “All right, let’s get some air under our feet, right now,” he said, leaning into the chattertube. “All hands prepare to up ship, emergency launch. I repeat, though do not make me repeat it again, all hands prepare for emergency launch.”

“All hands ready, Captain,” Sabrina said. “Eighty-six souls aboard.”

Buckle winked at Nero. “Ballast. Release all hydrogen into the cells. Slam, bang. Up ship!”

“Aye, Captain,” Nero responded, cranking his hydrogen reserve-tank wheels. “All hydrogen across the board. Slam, bang!”

The mighty, eerie hiss of every reserve hydrogen tank heaving open along the length of the ship filled the air. The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
trembled like a baby bird with new wings.

“Come on, old girl,” Buckle said. “It’s your sky.”

The airship released a mighty shudder and groan.

“Reserve tanks empty, Captain!” Nero shouted. “All cells close to maximum capacity.”

The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
surged, slowly, even on her keel. She creaked at every joint, knot, and cable as she escaped upward from the press of the earth. The swirling yellow buglights rocked gently outside the gondola, everything inside floating in the bioluminescent green glow of boil in the glass—altimeter dials, deflection pointers, water compasses, gyroscopes, thermometers, thermohygrometers, and the inclinometers with their bubbles. And then the behemoth lifted free with a great sigh of canvas, a small moon breaking away into the moonlit sky.

Buckle’s heart rejoiced with the air under his feet, the sway of the deck cradling his spirit. “Good girl! Good girl!” he shouted. “Max! You and your repair teams are wizards.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Max responded, all business, her eyes close on her instruments. “Positive buoyancy holding steady.”

“Ten feet altitude,” Sabrina announced, watching her dials. “Twenty feet. Equilibrium good. Static inertia good. Thirty feet.”

A voice crackled through the chattertube hood. “Emergency! Emergency! Prisoner has escaped!”

“Of course this could not have gone smoothly,” Buckle said in a droll tone.

“He jumped!” the chattertube voice screamed. “Blue bloody blazes! He jumped! Starboard side!”

Scully leapt to the open starboard gunwale, leveraging his musket over the rail.

Buckle stepped to the gunwale alongside Scully and peered down at the dark, silvery-white mass of Catalina Island, now forty feet below.

“There he is!” Scully shouted, swinging his musket to take aim. The steampiper prisoner had appeared, dashing through a snowy ravine; he was still locked into his wrist manacles, but he had gotten free of his leg irons somehow.

Buckle pushed Scully’s barrel aside. “Let him go, Sergeant.”

Scully gave Buckle an incredulous look. Then he nodded. “Aye, Captain Buckle. Letting him go, sir.”

Buckle ducked back into the gondola and replaced De Quincey at the helm wheel, wanting to feel the life of the rudder with his own hands. He felt strangely encouraged that he had let the steampiper live. There would be far too much killing for anyone’s taste in the days to come.

“Eighty-five souls aboard,” Sabrina announced with a wry smile in her voice.

“Ninety feet,” Welly said.

Buckle could have kissed his zeppelin, his giant daughter, as she rose into the darkling night. The familiar gray clouds, forever shrouding the moon, supported the soft ceiling of the sky, while the black sea anchored the earth beneath. The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
was a happy shadow, slipping through the netherworld, heading for home.

“All ahead standard,” Buckle said into the chattertube, cocking the chadburn handle forward, ringing the bell. The engineering bell rang immediately after, the sister dial cranking round to match the position of the first.

“All ahead standard, aye!” echoed the affirmation from engineering.

Buckle looked at his crew, nestled around him on the bridge, and felt more fatherly toward them than he ever had before. “We shall get home safe and sound, I am certain, my friends,” he said. “But there are many trials and tribulations ahead. Of that we can be certain as well.”

Everyone nodded.

“Aye. We know this,” Sabrina replied. “And each and every one of us is with you for the long haul, Captain. We shall follow you to the end of the world.”

“Wherever fate might cast us?” Buckle asked warmly, smiling at the strong faces around him. And what of the mysteries afoot in the underground of his mind: the looming threat of the Founders, the tangled tales of Katzenjammer Smelt, Sabrina’s red hair, and where Elizabeth might be at that very moment?

“To the end of the world it is then, mates,” Captain Romulus Buckle said, cranking the rudder wheel over to starboard. “To the end of the world.”

THE END

E
VERY NOVEL IS A LABOR
of love, and there are many wonderful people who have shared this journey with me. I am fortunate to be the son of Richard and Janet Preston, my stalwart patrons, whose inexhaustible love and support have always fueled my sense of who I am and what I must do. My wife and eagle-eyed reader, Shelley, whose love, positivity, and enthusiasm keeps me afloat, and our two daughters, Sabrina and Amelia, who inspire every word I write. I must also thank my sisters, Marsha and Joanna, and all of the family and friends who have lavished me with encouragement along the way.

Special thanks go out to Julia Kenner, a tremendous writer and friend, who generously opened doors for the manuscript. I must also thank Trident Media Group and my first agent, the fantastic Adrienne Lombardo, who championed this book and believed in Romulus Buckle as much as I did. Heartfelt thanks go out to my new agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, my brilliant caretaker, who is currently constructing ambitious plans for our future. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my wizardly and most patient editor Alex Carr and everyone on my 47North team, and also to my incomparable development editor, Jeff VanderMeer.

I must also express my thanks to Kellie, a little dog whose memory, in some lovely, wonderful way, inspired the writing of this steampunk series.

R
ICHARD
E
LLIS
P
RESTON,
J
R. IS
fascinated by the steampunk genre, which he sees as a unique storytelling landscape.
Romulus Buckle and the City of the Founders
is the first installment in his new steampunk series, The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin. Richard has also written for film and television. He lives in California and haunts Twitter
@RichardEPreston
.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading
Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders
by Richard Ellis Preston, Jr.

The adventure is far from over, and the zeppelin flies again in
Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War
(coming soon). Please enjoy the following excerpt from the author and 47North.