The Oilman's Daughter (4 page)

Jonathan’s grumble was heartfelt. “French. Why do they all speak French?”

“We are in France, sir,” said Porter in his best dry butler’s tone.

Jonathan crossed his arms. “I’m Jonathan Orbital. I need to speak to the stationmaster.”

The young man’s eyes flicked upward to the large painted portrait of the Orbitals hanging overhead. He looked back down at Jonathan and then his eyes grew wide. “I’m so sorry, sir! I didn’t recognize you. I must have looked at that portrait a thousand times.”

“Just let us inside, please.”

The man unclipped the velvet rope and motioned them inside the offices.

Jonathan had only taken a few steps into the offices when a large man with a shock of white hair accosted him. “Jonathan Orbital, as I live and breathe! Good to see you, lad! I’d heard you were on the train that was robbed. I’m glad to see you’re all right.” The man pumped Jonathan’s hand and slapped his back.

Jonathan winced. “Hello, Ernest.” Ernest Pickering had been one of the movers and shakers in his father’s ground-based rail empire back in the States. His specialty had been kicking down the doors of potential investors and yelling at them until they wrote a check to make him leave. It appeared that the boisterous man’s time among the French hadn’t tempered him a whit.

“I expect you’d like a status report on the train, eh?”

“Yes, please.”

Ernest consulted his watch. “It’s five hours before the elevator lifts. Plenty of time for lunch. I’ve found a place nearby where the chef actually knows how to cook a goddamned steak. Best cuisine in the world? Cream sauces and weeds. Hah! Give me an American beefsteak and some proper Idaho potatoes any day of the week.”

Jonathan was hungry, but he’d also dined with Ernest before, and watching the man make love to his food was enough to put anyone off their own meal. “Actually, Ernest, you’d better tell me the details now. I’ll need to cable my father.”

Ernest’s jovial attitude disappeared. “I’ve already sent him a report, lad.”

Jonathan bristled at the man’s tone and injected a bit of frost into his reply. “Of course you have, Ernest, but he’ll want to hear from me directly, especially if you told him I was injured in the attack.”

“Very well, Jonathan. Come with me and I’ll show you the report.”

“Are there daguerreotypes?”

“Yes, they came down on the elevator. And we developed them here.”

Ernest brought him back to the stationmaster’s office and handed him a sheaf of papers inside a folder. “Goddamn pirates.” Ernest poured small cups of strong coffee for both of them. “I kept wondering when they were going to hit the train. I’ve been telling your father for years that we needed armed security on board.”

Jonathan shook his head as he paged through the file. “He doesn’t want to repeat the lawlessness of the Old West in space.”

Ernest snorted. “It’s already here, lad. You’ve got pirates in secret bases on the moon and that criminal sanctuary at the Lagrange Sargasso. The Space Guard can’t keep up, and the CR is a juicy target with a predictable schedule. Honestly, it’s a wonder we weren’t hit before today.”

The file broke down the losses into stark black and white numbers for Jonathan. Four hundred gallons of water. Three hundred cubic feet of compressed air. Assorted foodstuffs, beverages, and personal effects of passengers and crew. All negligible and easily replaced.

Personnel and equipment losses were much more of a detriment to the CR. It was an expensive enterprise to operate, and required highly-trained employees. All that translated into high passenger fares, and the kind of people who could and did pay those fares responded poorly in a public way when bad things happened, which made them unlikely to invest further in the company.

The loss report grew even more grim as Jonathan read on. One car was a complete loss and would have to be towed to the Lagrange Sargasso. Three others were damaged enough to require disconnection from the track for extended repairs. That in and of itself was an expensive procedure, requiring multiple Fulton tugboats and zero-gravity cranes. The major work had already been completed, and the cost numbers stretched into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jonathan looked at the daguerreotypes and shook his head.

Two CR employees lost their lives to the pirate attack, both of them stewards who’d been caught in a car that lost pressure too quickly to be rescued. The chief engineer had been severely traumatized and entered a sanatorium for treatment. A longtime resident of orbital space, he faced a long, painful battle as he had to re-acclimate to gravity. Jonathan didn’t envy him.

Finally, one passenger had been killed, six injured, and one was missing. “Missing?” asked Jonathan aloud. “We lost a passenger?” He thought of Cecilie again and tried to push away his encroaching dread.

“I’m afraid so, lad. We couldn’t find any sign of her. We’re afraid she may have been taken by the pirates. Nasty business, that. Poor girl.”

“Her? Who was it?” But he already knew, deep in the pit of him.

“French lass named Cecilie Renault. Traveling by herself.”

“And what’s being done to find her?”

Ernest shrugged and downed his cup of coffee. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Space Guard couldn’t catch the bastards. She’s gone. The CR will have to pay off her family to avoid any kind of unpleasant press.”

“Unpleasant press?” Jonathan was aghast. “We’ve had a girl kidnapped off our very own train and all you can think about is unpleasant press?”

Ernest fixed a solemn gaze on him. “What else would you have us do? We have a business to run. We’re not the Space Guard. Leave it to them to chase the pirates.”

Jonathan felt his mouth working, but nothing came out. He’d never felt so helpless before. Cecilie was a kind and smart woman, and for the briefest moment in the cupola, he thought he’d felt a spark kindle between them, a connection born of being the children of highly ambitious fathers looking to change the world. He might have even courted her, if she would have had him. And now she was the pawn of some pirates floating around somewhere in the void of space, and for what? Perhaps they thought she was wealthy and worth some good coin. Certainly they couldn’t have been interested in her father’s crackpot petroleum venture.

“We can’t just let them get away, Ernest.”

“What are you going to do, lad, rescue her yourself?” Regardless of intent, Ernest’s laugh sounded mocking. Of course, the idea of Victor Orbital’s disappointingly bland spawn jetting into space to rescue a fair maiden from the clutches of greasy space pirates was worth mocking. Jonathan didn’t have a heroic bone in his body; his only real ambition in life had been to balance ledgers and push paper across a desk far, far away from orbiting trains. Even now, the mere thought of entering microgravity again made him queasy, but for the first time in his soft and simple life, he felt the calling of a greater purpose. This mad certainty must have been what drove his father to build empires, but Jonathan didn’t want an empire. He just wanted the chance to find the woman that had captivated him, and perhaps ask her to dinner.

He stood up. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Knowing he was going to need every bit of fortitude he could muster, he drained his strong, bitter coffee in a single gulp. “Give me her passenger information. I’ll need to speak with her father.”

Ernest shook his head in sad amusement as he handed the railroad’s copy of Cecilie’s ticket to Jonathan. “It’s a waste of your time, lad. If they haven’t already killed her by now, she’ll certainly wish she was dead.”

“Don’t be so sure. She’s no wilting violet. Good day to you, Ernest.”

Porter fell into step behind Jonathan as the young man marched out of Ascent Tower. “Shall we return to the hotel, sir?”

“Eventually, yes. First I need to cable my father, and then we need to find Dr. Renault. We’re going to rescue Mademoiselle Cecilie from the pirates, Jefferson.”

Porter didn’t even blink. “Very good, sir.”

Under the direction of his Captain, young Sebastian guided the battered
Ethershark
down into the defunct lunar lava tube that served as the docking station for the pirates’ grotto. The ship groaned and creaked with every puff of deceleration. Phinneas could almost feel the wounds across her hull, each one like a scar on his own heart. Even the gentle lunar gravity was almost more than she could bear.

Steam pressure had dropped down to a baby’s breath, and the ship kept listing to port. Phinneas knew that side had sustained the worst damage, and only one nozzle had any thrust left. The gunnery pod there was gone, along with the man who’d crewed it. Precious atmosphere leaked into the void through any number of gaps in the buckled hull plating, and the crew had resorted to sucking wisps of air from their reserve oxygen tanks—the ones they’d stolen from the train. During the journey to the moon, the rush from evading the Space Guard had worn off, leaving behind a sour realization: they had come far too close to meeting their makers this time, with no profit to show for it. But Phinneas didn’t dare risk mutiny by showing fear or regret.

With a final hiss, the
‘Shark
settled into its docking cradle with a clang and Phinneas turned to face his crew with fresh vigor that only went skin deep. “Get those locks spun, boys. Fresh air’s just beyond the lock. Look lively, lads!” For emphasis, he grabbed Sebastian and threw the boy across the cabin toward the clamp locks. The boy and three other men turned the cranks that connected the ship to the grotto’s airlock.

Once the
‘Shark
was secure in her berth, Phinneas turned to survey his men. Most of them slumped at their stations, subdued and struggling to remain conscious from the low oxygen levels. Zeric cradled his broken arm to his chest. His face had gone pale, and clammy pain sweat dotted his skin, but he still gave a heroic thumbs-up at the Captain’s nod. Gore from the dead helmsman, splinters of wood, and other shrapnel decorated the rest of the cabin like the remnants from a party gone very wrong. The floor hatches opened and some of the below-decks crewmen crawled out, bruised and bloodied but still showing the resolute spark of career pirates. Phinneas felt relieved to see their gumption, but it wasn’t enough to override the gut-wrenching reality that the
Ethershark
would be out of commission for weeks, if not months.

Phinneas turned to Sebastian. “See to it Zeric here gets to Sawbones and that all the rest of ye lot get food and rest tonight. Tomorrow it’s back to calisthenics.”

The crewmen groaned.

“We’ll all be out of work till this teapot’s fixed. I’m not gonna have my crew goin’ flabby in the meantime. Now move it. I’ll get the girl.”

The men shuffled toward the airlock in the well-practiced bunny hop that came from life on the moon.

Phinneas went to the galley where the Renault wench sat bound to one of the mess table’s metal legs. In the midst of the battle, someone had zipped her into a spare vacuum suit and put an oxygen mask on her face, likely getting a good handful of pretty flesh in the process. Upon seeing him, the girl began to struggle and flail about, but the oxygen mask muffled her yells. He gave her hip a nudge with his boot. “Ye’re bound to use up every last sip of that air with all yer caterwauling, but if it’ll make ye feel better, go ahead. I’ll wait till ye faint. It’ll be easier to carry ye that way.” He folded his arms and stood proud despite the graying corners of his vision due to oxygen deprivation. His own tank was making the wet fart sound of flapping rubber valves; he was only a minute or two away from being empty.

The girl stopped moving and her almond-shaped eyes narrowed into predatory slivers. “Untie me, you fiend.”

Phinneas knelt down and put his face close enough to her to make their masks touch. “I’ll untie ye, lass, but then I’ll take ye inside and tie you back up in there. If yer still and don’t make it difficult, it’ll go painless and quick. Well, mostly painless. I might even tie the knots a little looser as a reward. Do we have a deal, Miss?”

“And what if I say no?”

Phinneas gave her his best savage smile and drew his Bowie knife. “Then ye best say it with the air already in yer lungs, because it’s the last yer gonna get.” With a quick, practiced move, he sliced through her air line. She gasped and struggled, her cheeks puffing out as she tried to hold onto what little air she had left. Phinneas didn’t care; he was willing to waste a partial tank of air to make a point. His own tank whistled empty and he knew he had scant seconds to spare. She passed out, and he sliced through the knots binding her to the mess table. After scooping her into his arms, he rushed her unconscious body through the cabin toward the airlock, moving like an automaton. He had to trust his muscles to perform the tasks he’d done hundreds of times, for his vision was growing dim and he could hear nothing but distant thunder in his ears.

He stepped into the airlock and dropped his unconscious hostage onto the deck. With the last of his strength, he dogged the hatch into the
‘Shark
’s cabin shut and then his knees buckled beneath him. Someone must have been watching through the other airlock door, because it rolled open and blessed fresh air rushed in to fill every nook and cranny. Phinneas tore his helmet off and gulped the familiar grotto air with its tang of garden vegetables and sweat.

Sebastian bent down beside him. “Are you all right, Cap’n Finn?”

Phinneas slowly pulled himself up and shrugged out of his tank harness. “Sebastian, I’m promoting ye to Third Officer. Bloody hell, yer of the right mindset for it, at any rate.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open before he remembered himself and fumbled a salute. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t make me regret it, Mister . . . I don’t believe I know yer last name, lad.”

“I ain’t got one, sir. I’m an orphan.”

“Then I name ye Helm, because ye handled the
‘Shark
like a man thrice yer age. Once she’s spaceworthy again, it’ll be yer hand at the tiller, lad.”

“Yes, sir.” Sebastian’s voice sounded distant, as if he were about to faint from the shock of being handed a promotion and family name at the same time. “Orders, Cap’n?”

“Detail two of the men to deliver the hostage to my quarters, Mister Helm.” Phinneas started unhooking the fasteners of his vacuum suit. He smirked when Sebastian’s voice cracked as the boy gave his first order as a ship’s officer. Phinneas, stripped down to his leathery shipwear, stepped from the airlock, and grinned as he looked over his grotto. “Bloody hell, it’s good to be home,” he said to no one in particular. The cool air inside the network of caves and tunnels below the moon’s surface soothed his overheated skin like a cool bolt of silk.

The main living area had been an ancient bubble in the lava tube. Its fishbowl shape inspired the men to dub it the Shark Tank. The room boasted couches, cots, and hammocks upon which many of the crewmen were already sprawled and snoring. Gaslights burned dim, set in sealed glass bulbs and fed by their own fuel and air lines to keep from contaminating the grotto’s air with their fumes. Their golden glow made flickering pools of light and shadow on the craggy gray walls and ground. Jewelry, books, and other miscellaneous trinkets from their recent spoils cluttered the tables. Steam radiators hissed along the walls, keeping the place at a livable temperature.

Many successful plunders had netted the pirates luxurious carpets and rugs from exotic countries. They were now fixed to floor, walls, and ceilings to help insulate the place and keep the echoes down. The rug hung on the wall closest to the airlock bore a gorgeous nude Indian woman with a third eye and golden jewelry. Dark smudges covered her breasts and hips where the men would brush their hands in passing. They all spoke in reverent tones of the Indian Lady, and those who still dreamed of returning to Big Blue often talked for hours about how they intended to go to Bombay or Calcutta, find a beautiful woman, start a family, and retire to a life of quiet luxury.

On the way to his personal quarters, Phinneas passed the small single-bed alcove they had designated as an infirmary, where Zeric lay getting his arm splinted and bandaged by the man they called Sawbones, who’d once been a doctor in the British Space Guard before getting caught with an Admiral’s daughter.

“How is he, Doc?”

Sawbones grunted around a mouthful of bandage clips. “He’ll live. ‘Course, it’s Duncan’s night to cook, so who knows whether any of us will see the dawn?”

Phinneas stepped up to Zeric’s bed. He smelled cheap whiskey in the air, which the First Mate had probably guzzled to dull the pain of having his arm set. “Did ye have a chance to assess the casualties and damage?”

“Aye, sir,” Zeric grumbled. “Six dead. Four from the engine room. Steam burns and vacuum exposure. The other two were Gunny Raines and the helmsman Smitty. Good men, all of ’em.”

The number of fallen men made his gut twist into knots. It constituted fifteen percent of his crew, the most he’d ever lost in one outing. Not an easy number to replace, especially to his impossible standards. “What about the
‘Shark
?”

“I got a team tallyin’ the damage now, but I can tell she’s tore up pretty bad. We’ll need to replace most of the armor platin’ and build a new gunnery pod. The main boiler’s like as not taken a shit, too. Even if we salvage parts from the Sargasso, it’ll take most of the commission on the French lass to get all we need to rebuild her.”

Phinneas kept his face passive, but each item on Zeric’s list felt like an icy blade slipped between his ribs. It was a long way to go to collect that commission, given that he still had to ferry her safely back to Earth to the people who wanted her. But he refused to paint such a bleak picture for the crew. Their good morale would be key to getting them out of this mess. He gave Zeric’s shoulder a hard clap. The First Mate winced in pain but said nothing.

“Rest up, Mate. We’ll have her starin’ down couriers and merchants again in no time.”

“Aye, Captain.” Zeric lobbed a weak salute with his off hand.

Phinneas detoured back to the Shark Tank before the men that were still awake drowned their sorrows in drink. “Listen up, ye scallywags!” His voice boomed off the cavernous walls, making most of the sleeping men fly upright with eyes as big as dinner plates. Phinneas slapped the heads of the dozing stragglers. Once he was satisfied he had the attention of his crew, he took a deep breath and found the cold steel bar of motivation in his gut that always kept him upright through rough storms. “Yer’re all aware that we’ve taken some hard losses today, and I’ll allow ye all this eve to rub some rum into yer wounds. Tomorrow we’ll take the time to remember the men we’ve lost. But we’re not lily-livered Gentlemen o’ Fortune. For every lump we take, we deal back three more. We showed that today when we sent that Limey cutter limpin’ home to the Queen’s teat. Godspeed to any sons of whores facin’ down the scurvy crew of the
Ethershark
!”

The crew responded with boisterous “yars,” as they hoisted up several amber bottles of rum and whiskey that would soon line their stomachs and put fuzz in their skulls.

“If only we could have some
real
whores!” someone shouted in a thick, drunken voice.

“In due time. Some of ye might do with a bath first, though. Ye bastards stink like ye’ve been plunderin’ shit from the deep end of a dead mule’s arse.” Phinneas chuckled all the way down the rough-hewn passage to his private quarters, leaving the rejuvenated men to their carousing. Sebastian waited at the door.

“I had the men set her on your bed, sir.” He saluted.

“Get some rest, Mister Helm. If I need anything, I’ll call.” Phinneas closed the heavy metal door and turned to consider the girl on his bed. It was king-sized, with brass posts and a real feather mattress. Some Turkish nobleman had spent a fortune to have it brought up the Well into orbit, and Phinneas had been only too happy to liberate it from the ungrateful bastard. He stripped the girl out of the quilted vacuum suit and tossed it into a corner. Sweat soaked her clothes, but unlike the reek of his crewmen, she still smelled of the rosy perfume she’d been wearing.

Phinneas bent down, keeping alert in case she was faking her unconsciousness, and inhaled her sweet, pungent aroma. As much beauty as he could cram into his grotto, it still stank of sweaty men. A woman’s scent was a welcome addition. He tied her arms to the posts, knowing she’d be infuriated to find herself in such a submissive position. Satisfied the the girl’s restraints were secure, he leaned down and pinched one of her earlobes. Her eyes flew open and she gasped at the sudden pain. She tried to jerk upright, but her bound wrists kept her from rising more than a few inches. She examined her suggestive bonds and gave Phinneas a withering glare that would have been right at home on the faces of his own scallywags. “You think this is very clever, don’t you?”

Phinneas stood up and went over to his wash basin in the corner of the room where he splashed some water on his face and washed as much of the grease and dirt from his hands and face as he could. There was no such thing as getting completely clean in his line of work. “I thought ye might appreciate the bed. It’s a wee bit more comfy for yer soft arse.”

“
Mangez de la merde.
”

The Captain laughed as he dried his face with a towel. “As it so happens, Miss Renault, I have eaten shit, and expect I probably will tonight with Duncan at mess. But I never figured yer mouth would be as dirty as mine.”