The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (31 page)

“This was once an important road,” said Sarah. “But it looks as if it has been barely used for centuries. Who built it?”

“No idea; it must have been long before my time,” said Hind.

A horseman appeared riding towards them with the unexpected suddenness that she associated with the spirit world. Hind cursed and pulled his horse off the road. As the stranger approached, she could see that he had the appearance of an ancient soldier. A highly polished bronze helmet and breastplate protected his head and chest, and a blood-red cloak fell around his shoulders.

Hind’s stallion whinnied and shuffled its feet so he hushed it, patting the animal on the nose.

“Who is that?” Sarah asked.

“Quiet, girl, best not to speak of him – in fact, best not to even look at him.”

Sarah lowered her eyes, obediently, but she could not resist a quick glance as the soldier passed. He seemed to feel Sarah’s eyes and slowly turned his head to look at her. There was no face under the helmet, just a black void. A great cold penetrated her bones and emptiness sucked at her mind. She couldn’t look away.

Hind grabbed the back of her head, forcing it down until she lost eye contact. The freezing cold disappeared, leaving her numb and tingling. Hind kept his hand warningly on the back of her head but she had learned her lesson and kept her eyes firmly shut until the tap of horse’s hooves faded into the distance.

“What was that thing?” she asked.

“Nothing that concerns us,” Hind replied. “I thought I told you to look away.” He sighed. “I should have known that a maid’s curiosity is stronger than her sense. Next time, I’ll cover your eyes myself.”

“Next time, I’ll take your advice,” Sarah promised.

“No, you won’t,” Hind said, grinning. He patted her thigh; this time she didn’t object.

He guided the stallion off the road onto a path that was little more than an animal track. The ground became progressively waterlogged, small puddles of surface water giving way to pools. Bubbles intermittently rose to the surface and she smelt foetid marsh gas. The horse mistepped and one of its front legs sank into an innocuous-looking pool right up to the knee. The animal scrambled back onto firm ground dragging its leg from the black goo with a sucking noise. A sickly organic smell like rotting flesh filled the air and tiny flying things burst out of the mud before the hole filled with water.

“Shhh, shhh,” said Hind, patting the animal’s neck to calm it.

Sarah tied a scarf around her mouth and nose to keep the buzzing “flies” out.

A great lake stretched before them. Hind guided the horse along its shoreline without comment. Sarah amused herself by watching light play on the water ripples.

A small head on a long neck popped out of the lake near the shore, just behind them. It had a single eye, a cheerful grin and a bright yellow tuft of hair on top. A second and then a third popped up. Soon there were dozens all swaying hypnotically in patterns that rippled through the herd. They followed the travellers, sometimes submerging and resurfacing.

Sarah spotted the shadow of a large dark shape beneath the surface as if something was stalking the herd but it made no aggressive move. The snakes gradually caught up with the travellers, bobbing and weaving the whole time.

“Look at those water snakes! Aren’t they just delightful?” Sarah said, pulling on Hind’s arm.

Hind stiffened, glanced over his shoulder, and reacted instantly, pulling the wide-muzzled highwayman’s blunderbuss from its leather scabbard.

The lake exploded; Sarah had an impression of stout leg-like flippers and a mouth the size of a cave entrance. Hind steadied the gun against his waist and discharged it with a loud crack. Billowing white smoke rolled across the water hiding the monster from view.

There was a scream like the hiss of a giant kettle-whistle and a mighty splash. When the smoke cleared, the lake was quiet again but dirty brown streaks of colour drifted up from below and spread out across the surface.

“What happened to the quaint little snakes?” said Sarah. Somehow, their fate seemed to matter to her.

“There were no quaint little snakes,” said Hind. “They were lures on the beast’s head to tempt the lack-witted close to the water.”

“I don’t think you should call yourself lack-witted,” said Sarah, sympathetically. “You couldn’t have known the monster was there.”

“I meant you!” Hind said, indignantly. “‘Look at those water snakes! Aren’t they just delightful?’” He mimicked her voice in a mocking way that was most ungentlemanly. “I suppose you would have wanted to pat them if I hadn’t intervened.”

Hind recharged his blunderbuss as they rode, the wide muzzle allowing him to pour powder down the barrel despite the motion.

They left the marsh and entered grasslands with little copses of trees. The terrain was gentler now, somehow more civilized. Small furry animals grazed among low bushes, shooting down burrows if Hind’s horse came too close.

“Please don’t try to stroke the cute little bunnies,” said Hind. “They have a nasty, diseased bite.”

Sarah stuck her nose in the air, treating that remark with the disdain it merited. “How far now to New Isle of Wight?” she asked.

Hind pointed. “There it is, down in that bowl.”

Sarah peered where he indicated. What she had thought was a fallen tree on closer inspection turned out to be a tumbledown rustic shepherd’s hut, although she could see no sheep.

“Are you sure?” she asked, uncertainly.

“You were expecting St Paul’s?” replied Hind.

“I will disconnect here, out of range of any sensitives in the colony,” Sarah said. “Captain Fitzwilliam wants to arrive unannounced and has given me strict instructions.”

Hind swung a leg over the horse’s head and dismounted in one smooth athletic movement. He handed Sarah down, only releasing her waist reluctantly. She moved away, enthasizing, reaching out with her mind to locate her position in the living world. She picked up an emotion from Hind that made her look back.

Many of the girls from the Academy saw their interaction with the spirit guides as essentially a business relationship. Sarah had been particularly horrified by one aristocratic girl.

“It’s like marriage, my dear, but more convenient. You do your duty to Queen and country on your back but at least you are spared the tedium of producing the heir and spare.”

Sarah, the respectable Bermondsey Street girl, had been shocked.

Hind looked so lost and lonely that she impulsively ran back and kissed him on the lips.

“I will remember my promise,” she said.

He grinned at her, clearly pleased, and patted her bottom as she walked away. The man was incorrigible. After ten or twelve steps, Sarah checked her position, enthasizing the hut for location. The living world flowed around her like an echo from a dream.

She dithered, wondering whether perhaps she should move a few steps further in, or perhaps to the left.

This is ridiculous, she thought. Just get it over with, girl.

Sarah closed her eyes and recited the prayer taught to her at the Naval Academy. She “pushed” with her mind, imagining a pair of scissors cutting a ribbon, and felt a tug at her body, gentle at first but fast becoming agonizing. Disconnection hit her like a tidal wave.

“… proceed,” said Fitzwilliam.

Sarah gasped and flopped back in the chair, shaking with fatigue. The bridge was filled with swirling grey energy. Someone retched with a particularly unpleasant gargle.

The grey cleared and Sarah saw stars through the portholes, foreign stars arranged in novel patterns. Brick-red light filled the bridge from a foreign sun.

Mr Brierly ran up a staircase to a glass dome at the rear of the bridge and took sightings with his sextant, measuring the angles between various astronomical features with great care. Sarah lay back exhausted, a tight knot of anxiety forming in her stomach. Had she brought them anywhere near the right location or was she about to suffer more humiliation?

Brierly took his time, double checking the sightings and jotting the results down carefully in a leather-bound notebook. He consulted a navigational almanac, comparing the tables of figures with those he had measured.

His slow deliberation did nothing for Sarah’s peace of mind. Why was he frowning and rechecking? What had gone wrong?

At last Brierly was ready to announce the results of his observations.

“Captain, we are in the vicinity of New Isle of Wight on the blind side of Lucifer. We’re within a few hundred miles of where you wanted us.”

The seamen on the bridge cheered.

“Silence!” A petty officer killed the spontaneous demonstration with a single word.

Fitzwilliam whistled. Arrival within two or three thousand miles of a far colony was considered proficient. Sometimes, an aethership had to use metastasis two or even three times to reach a suitable sailing point for the final journey in.

“Very well done, Pilot,” Fitzwilliam said. “I fancy we can sail the rest of the way.”

Sarah was absolutely horrified. Now they would expect miraculous piloting skills from her every time. All her anxieties flooded back like a tidal bore. She cursed the ill luck that had caused this.

“Carry on, Mr Brierly,” said Fitzwilliam. “Mr Smythe – please get a seaman to clean up that awful mess you have made on my bridge deck.”

The young lieutenant was a nasty greenish-yellow colour. “Aye, aye, sir,” Smythe said, disappearing.

“All topmen on deck,” Brierly yelled into a speaking tube.

Sarah heard the tramp of heavy boots clanging. Sound travelled easily through the steel-built vessel. The bridge was within an armoured tower on the back of the top deck. Sarah had a good view down the starboard side of the ship from the pilot’s chair.

Seamen in aethersuits emerged from hatches onto the deck and climbed the thick steel masts. Within minutes, sails unfurled and filled, picking up the solar winds.

“Sailing skills had almost died out in the Navy when the first aetherships were launched,” Fitzwilliam said from beside her chair. “We had to recruit old salts from merchant tramp ships to teach the new generation of topmen. That’s why we all start our careers on saltwater sailing ships. Do you know how the ship navigates?”

“They teach us the basics,” Sarah replied, shrugging. “The solar wind in the sails pushes against a keel of aetherium that runs down the centre of the ship. The resulting parallelogram of forces squeezes the ship in the desired direction.”

“Very good,” said Fitzwilliam, patronizingly, as if talking to a precocious child at a party.

Sarah glared at him. The man must think she was an idiot.

Fitzwilliam carried on as if she had not spoken. “Now we are under way, we will be turning onto a port tack. Lucifer will come into view to starboard.”

Sarah peered out of the porthole, irritation forgotten. A huge red-brown ball slid out from under the bow. Yellow and orange bands streaked its surface, colouring great frozen whirlpools, each of which must be bigger than the Earth.

“New Isle of Wight is one of Lucifer’s moons,” Fitzwilliam said. “Tidal forces heat the world otherwise it would be colder than Mars. The sun here may be large but its fires are weak with age.”

“Why is it called Lucifer?” Sarah asked. “It doesn’t look especially hellish.”

“I wondered that as well,” Fitzwilliam replied. “Perhaps the dull red sun inspired the name, or maybe it’s because Lucifer has unusually bad tidal disruptions in the aether, which is why the colony is called New Isle of Wight.” He smiled at her blank expression. “The Isle of Wight off southern England has four tides a day and is surrounded by vicious rip currents. Drake’s men used them to lure the Armada to destruction in Southampton waters.”

“I have never stood on the soil of a far world,” Sarah said, changing the subject as she knew little history. Academy training had been thorough but narrow in scope and she lacked the liberal school education of a real lady.

“And you won’t on this cruise, either,” said Fitzwilliam. “We are not going anywhere near the colony. Merchant ships are disappearing on the New Isle of Wight run. Ships do disappear but the Admiralty suspect that there’s a pirate operating in this area. The City is berating the politicians over their losses and the politicians are leaning on the Navy. Not that they will vote us any more money, of course. My orders are to stop the attacks permanently and we won’t do that by advertising our presence; pounds to peanuts the pirate has informers in the colony giving information about shipping. We want to catch the villains, not just scare them somewhere else.”

Sarah was disappointed that they would not be docking at New Isle of Wight but she was cheered up by the news that the
Cassandra
would be chasing pirates. The Admiralty never told pilots why they were going somewhere; they only released destinations to pilots because they had no choice, but pirate hunting sounded exciting.

Sarah was so bored that she had taken to reading Admiralty regulations to while away the time. She was currently memorizing the range of buoy coloured bands used to indicate right of way exceptions. The only fun to be had was with Hind but there were practical limits to how often she could enthasize with him without exhaustion setting in. There were Admiralty regulations about even this – under enthasis, pilots for the use of, frequency per month.

A light coming on in her cabin indicated another alert; a ship must have been sighted. Regulations demanded that she be on the bridge during an engagement, not that there was much chance of finding anything to engage. For six long weeks, the
Cassandra
had tacked backwards and forwards across New Isle of Wight’s shipping lanes. This was only the third vessel sighted and the other two had been harmless merchantmen.

Sarah took her place on the pilot’s couch, ignored by the other crew. Mr Brierly had a long telescope trained through a forward porthole. “She’s a Yankee sloop running straight towards us; nothing suspicious about her at all.” Disappointment coloured his voice. “She’s carrying a large spread of sail but she probably has degradable luxury foods aboard and her captain wants to get to market before they spoil.”