The Oilman's Daughter (5 page)

Cecilie looked frightened, but Phinneas saw something else underneath that fear: pure steel. “What is it you want? Is it money? That is what you pirates all want, is it not? Well, I have none,
Monsieur
.”

“What I’d like right now, in fact, is a glass of brandy. Would ye like some?” Phinneas opened the cabinet that contained casks and bottles of the finest liquors he’d lifted from various space and seafaring vessels over the course of his long career. One unopened bottle of Scotch he kept in the very back was worth three times this woman’s bounty. He still awaited the right occasion to open it, but thought it would be wasted on the lips of his men. The Captain was never known for his generosity, and this was the first time he’d ever offered a drink to one of his prisoners, but he felt a certain kinship with her. Under all her soft feminine finery, he suspected she was more like him than the men on his crew. Brutal but educated.

“You would likely poison me.” Cecilie’s glare could have cut through a mile of moon rock.

Phinneas held up two crystal glasses that each had a spot of the fine reddish-amber liquid. “Ye think I’d go to all this trouble just so I could slip ye a mickey? Use that lump of overcooked oatmeal ye Frenchies call a brain. There’s no percentage in killin’ a hostage.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do with me, then?” Her gaze flicked over to her bonds and then back to Phinneas. A look of horror came across her face. “You wouldn’t.”

Phinneas knocked back his brandy. “Rape ye? Rest easy, lass. That sort of business leaves a bad taste in me mouth.” He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Although it’s no secret I’ve got plenty of men on the other side of that door who’d slip ye the trouser snake without battin’ an eye. It would do ye good to remember that if ye’re thinkin’ about bein’ uncooperative.”

“
Je ne comprends pas
. You don’t want money. You don’t want my . . . my body. What do you want?”

Phinneas poured himself another splash of brandy. “It’s not me, Miss. A man in Houston has his eyes on your father’s refinin’ formula and wants to know the secret.”

“So he paid you to kidnap me in order to convince my Papa to turn over his invention? Why didn’t he just pay through a civilized business dealing?”

He sipped his brandy and rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing its divine fire. “Because I have a feeling I work more in this man’s price range. And this lubber doesn’t much like to behave a civilized way. I plan to deliver ye to him tomorrow.”

“And in the meantime, what will you do, torture me?”

Phinneas winked at her and took some delight in seeing her shrink back from him. “I’m not that kind of pirate.”

“
Hmph
. I’m not so sure about that. I saw your work on the train.”

He leered over her. “I’m gonna let ye in on a little secret, Miss. It might make yer stay here a little more tolerable. I don’t get me kicks off torturin’ folks unless they’re keepin’ me from doin’ my job. Some pirates do have a sense honor, believe it or not.”

Cecilie sat up as straight as she could and met his gaze. “Then you better see to my protection, because I saw the way some of your cretin men were looking at me on the ship and I felt more than one hand go higher than it should have.”

Phinneas shrugged. “It’s been a long time we’ve been in space, and most of the lads aren’t gettin’ much action outside of their dreams. Ye cooperate with me and I’ll see to it that imagination is the only thing they get by the handful, if ye take my meanin’. Otherwise . . .” He chose to let her draw her own conclusion at that.

She leaned back to stare at the stony ceiling. Her demeanor was as cold as the void outside, but she looked a little more relaxed. “Thank you.”

Phinneas leaned down. “No more of yer kickin’, screamin’, and bitin’. Play fair with me and I play fair back with ye. Do we have an agreement?”

“
Oui.
Now might I perhaps have a drink of the brandy? I’m parched.”

He picked up the glass and tipped some of the drink into her mouth. “Careful, Miss. Drinkin’ in lunar gravity’s a bit of a trick.”

She spat a mist of the liquor in his face. “
Allez á l’enfer!
Since you can’t kill me, I have no intention of making this easy for you, filthy pirate.”

Phinneas felt a vein in the middle of his forehead pulsing with rage beneath the skin and he shoved her hard back into the pillows, the back of her head bonking the brass railing behind her. He nearly backhanded her, but he’d promised to deliver her unblemished and he wasn’t going to let her get the best of him. “Oh, I might not kill ye, saucy bitch, but before this is over, ye’ll likely be beggin’ me to.” He stormed out of the room, shutting her ferocious screams behind the heavy steel door.

Miss Renault’s original ticket document showed she lived at an address in the Latin Quarter. Through stilted questioning of a Hansom driver with translation facilitated by Porter, Jonathan learned that the residence in question was in a row of flats just across a narrow street from
École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris
. “What on Earth does that mean?” he asked Porter.

“It’s a university for geologists,” said the butler.

“I suppose that makes sense if he’s working with petroleum. One would have to know something about mining to find it.”

“I expect so, sir.”

“I wonder if he’s associated with the school.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out.” Porter directed the driver to the appropriate street. They passed numerous bistros and cafes filled with students sipping
café au lait
and studying thick textbooks. The smells of fresh bread, strong coffee, and Turkish tobacco made Jonathan want to call an early stop for a quick bite. Nevertheless, his sense of duty overrode his hunger, and he let his stomach grind away at itself as the Hansom driver blew his whistle again and again to encourage pedestrians and equestrians alike to move aside. Shouting at a young man in an apron tangled up in a half dozen recalcitrant dogs, the driver bullied his way to the curb.

While Porter paid the driver, Jonathan climbed down into the lazy afternoon sunlight. He’d spoken to the head financier at the Banque de France and obtained several thousand francs on his personal credit. Porter carried most of it on the theory that he was a less-likely target for a pickpocket.

Many people strolled the narrow streets or rode bicycles to and fro. Horses pulled carts laden with bolts of cloth, piles of lumber, or bags of flour. A civil crew worked at replacing broken cobblestones, chipping them out with a sledgehammer and chisel and pounding new ones into place. Laughter arose from a nearby cafe as an orator regaled his audience in French. Somewhere nearby, a pianist accompanied a woman singing opera. Overhead, a housewife snapped linens from her window while schoolchildren ran past, shrieking at one another.

As the children raced past him, the young man with the dogs became entangled even worse than before. One of his charges broke free and the tiny schnauzer ran yapping after the children. Jonathan bent down and snagged the errant leash and the dog pulled up short with a jerk. It turned and barked its indignation at him.

“Come on, little fellow.” Jonathan gave a firm tug on the leash and the dog, resigned to having lost its freedom once more, trotted past him to sniff at the other dogs held by the young man.

“
Merci, Monsieur
.” He turned to the hapless dog. “
Vous êtes un chien très mauvais, Kaiser
.”

The schnauzer laid its head on its paws and suffered the man’s rebuke.

“Ask him if he knows Doctor Renault,” said Jonathan.

“English?” asked the man.

“American, actually. Do you know a Doctor Renault who lives nearby?”

“
Oui, Monsieur
. He lives in this building. Second door from the end.” The young man pointed to where a hefty woman stood on a stoop, yelling into an open window.

“What’s that all about?” asked Jonathan.

“That is Madame De Gaulle. She’s, how do you say?
La maîtresse de maison.”

“Ah,” said Porter. “The landlady.”

“He must be behind in his rent again. The man is helpless without his daughter.”

“I see,” said Jonathan. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful, my friend.”

The man nodded and wrestled the dogs on down the street. Jonathan waited until the landlady left and then he and Porter ascended onto the stoop. He knocked on the door. “Monsieur Renault? Are you home?”

“
Non
,” came a voice from somewhere inside. “Go away.”

“Monsieur, it’s about your daughter. May we come in?”

The door opened a crack and Jonathan could see a suspicious eye looking them up and down. “You’re not with that horrible woman?”

“No, sir.”

The door opened and Doctor Renault urged them inside. “Quickly, quickly, before she returns. Dreadful woman. Her demands will be the death of me.” He was a rotund man with a florid face and cheeks like ripening apples. His tiny black mustache almost disappeared under a prodigious nose and heavy jowls. He mopped his forehead and pushed an errant strip of black hair away from his face. “Now, what is this about Cecilie? She’s supposed to be home by now and she isn’t.”

Jonathan held his hat in his hands. “Monsieur, I’m Jonathan Orbital, with the Circumferential Railroad. I need to inform you that there was an incident, and your daughter is missing.”

“An incident? Missing? But she was in space! What sort of incident?”

“Pirates, Monsieur. They attacked the train and took your daughter.”

Renault collapsed onto a divan. “Pirates took Cecilie? But why?”

“For ransom, I would assume. Are you a wealthy man, Dr. Renault?”

“
Non
, not at all.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m behind on my rent. Madame De Gaulle is an evil, evil woman. Uneducated in the ways of science.”

“Perhaps it’s not money the pirates want from you,” said Jonathan. “You are a scientist, a chemist? Mademoiselle Renault mentioned she was seeking funding for you to further your research into petroleum distillation.”

“Ah, yes! Now that might be worth something.” Renault’s eyes lit up and he waved his arms about as he spoke, threatening to knock over the lamp on the table beside his divan. “For many years, we have seen petroleum as only suitable for industrial lubrication. But I have discovered a method by which I may extract kerosene and natural gas from it. Imagine how that might change the world, if kerosene were to become cheap and plentiful. It burns more efficiently than coal or timber to drive our boilers, or even to power an internal combustion engine.”

“Cecilie tried to explain that to me, but internal combustion engines don’t work,” said Jonathan. “My father experimented with them on the railroads. They don’t generate enough power. Inefficient.”

“As things are now, but once my technology is in the right hands, the whole face of the world will change. And engines are only the beginning. There are thousands of potential applications.”

Jonathan glanced over at Porter, who shrugged. They were both well out of their depth of knowledge here. “So clearly this is valuable enough to hold her ransom over.”

Renault nodded. “Oh yes indeed. I just never thought it might come to this. Has there been any word from the pirates who . . . who . . .” A change washed across his face and he seemed to age twenty years before Jonathan’s eyes. Renault slumped in his seat, put his face in his hands and sobbed. “She’s gone.
Elle est partie!
Ma petite fille douce a été volé loin de moi!
Quelle que soit dois-je faire?”

Jonathan wasn’t sure how to console the man, but he nevertheless patted him on the shoulder. “There, there. We will find her, Monsieur. That’s why we came to see you. To tell you what happened and that we are embarking on a mission to return her to you.”

Renault sniffled and looked up at Jonathan with red-rimmed eyes. “Really? Do you truly believe you can do this?”

Jonathan raised his head and spoke with great solemnity. “I swear on the grave of my grandfather that I will succeed.”

The scientist clasped his hands around Jonathan’s and his face grew even redder. “
Merci, Monsieur. Merci beaucoup. Que Dieu vous bénisse, Monsieur!”

“If you should receive a message about your daughter, I want you to contact Ernest Pickering at Ascension Tower. He’ll know how to reach me. I’ll leave word with him that you are welcome there at any time and in turn he is to deliver any news to you. The Railroad failed you because we didn’t protect your daughter. I hold myself and my company responsible, and I intend to make it right.” Jonathan did not add that he felt personally invested due to his inexplicable connection to Cecilie, but he hoped there would be an opportunity to do so when he brought her home.

A sudden banging at the door startled Jonathan, followed by a strident voice. “
Monsieur Renault! Sont Vous là-dedans?
Vous me devez deux cents francs de loyer de retour! Payez, vous porc paresseux!”

“
Sacre bleu!
That awful woman again,” whispered Renault. “Quickly, go through the kitchen and out the back door. I must hide!”

The banging grew louder. Jonathan glanced at Porter, and the two men tiptoed across the floor and out the back of the flat as Renault ducked underneath his desk.

“That was a pretty strong promise you gave the man, sir.” Porter led the way as they hurried through the stinking alley behind the row flats.

“I meant every word, Jefferson.” A cat yowled at them from atop a rubbish bin. Jonathan reached for it. It hissed and clawed at him. He jerked his hand back.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but you don’t strike me as quite the heroic sort.” Porter tossed an empty can at the spitting cat. It squalled and retreated behind a trash heap.

“Yes, I know. But I suppose it’s time I learn. Did you see how excited Renault was about his process? If it’s even half as great as he thinks it is, it might be worth millions to certain people. I’d bet a new Stetson that’s why they took his daughter. Someone’s going to blackmail him into giving up his secret. Imagine all that oil in Texas actaully being worth something. Jefferson, doesn’t your piece of land have oil on it?”

“Yes, though I’m not going to hold my breath on it. We’ve heard every promise in the book from people saying they had a use in mind for it, but nothing ever came to fruition.”

“Don’t fret. This could be the thing that changes the world.”

Jonathan flagged down a two-wheeled Hansom pulled by a capricious filly and driven by a boy who seemed two sizes too small for the giant floppy hat perched on his head.

“
Où, messieurs?”

“Ascension Tower,” said Jonathan.

One harrowing ride later, the two men tumbled out of the Hansom, both grateful to be alive and whole. They hurried into the building, knowing they had only minutes before the next elevator launch.

“Ah, welcome back, Monsieur Orbital,” began the steward at the door, but Jonathan bolted by him and crossed the floor, now clear of all passengers and cargo as the elevator prepared for ascent. The tower’s rooftop had been rolled back and the atomic-powered boilers were whistling as they achieved maximum pressure.

Jonathan crashed through the door into the ground control booth. “Wait! I’ve got to get on that elevator!”

Ernest Pickering whirled in surprise, eyes agape, but to his credit responded without hesitation. “Hold that elevator! Telegraph, inform Pinnacle Station of the brief delay.”

A brief flurry of activity filled the control booth as the men spun wheels to mitigate steam pressure while the telegraph operator tapped away at his sending.

Jonathan gasped for breath. “Thanks, Ernest. I owe you one.”

“I’d say you owe us all one,” said the large man. “Is this about that girl taken by the pirates?”

“It is, and I can’t risk waiting five days.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Come on, Jonathan, be reasonable. Surely she’s been killed by now.”

Jonathan knew he wasn’t an impressive specimen of manhood, but he drew himself up to his full height. “I won’t hear another word about it, Ernest. This is happening, and when we bring her back alive, you can explain to her father and mine how you tried to talk us out of it. Now is there sufficient weight allowance on the elevator for Porter and me or not?”

Ernest stiffened. He couldn’t have been afraid of Jonathan, but the words carried enough weight to forestall further argument. “Will you be bringing any luggage aboard?”

“No, we’ll travel light.”

“Then yes, weight allowances permit the two of you to board.”

“Thanks, Ernest. I’m authorizing a half-day’s pay bonus for everyone in here today.” Jonathan shook Ernest’s hand. “Wish us luck.”

Ernest brightened at the prospect of a bonus, as did all the men in the control booth. “Good luck, Jonathan. Give ’em hell the way only an American can.”

Jonathan and Porter hurried to the elevator and waited while the interior crew opened the airlock to let them board.

The passengers, strapped into their seats around the edges of the hemispherical compartment, turned to regard the newcomers, muttering amongst themselves at the unexpected delay. Like the orbital elevator in Houston, the Parisian elevator was richly-appointed. The lush carpeting beneath their feet bore a decorative pattern of curling vines and
fleur de lis
. The walls were paneled with South American hardwood. Polished brass rings circled the leaded glass portholes, where people would be able to gaze down at the earth as they ascended. Electric light fixtures resembling candles gleamed high up on the walls, which curved upward to a point ten feet above the floor. A mosaic of stars and planets on a field of black lightened to sky blue at the lower edges of the dome. Some two dozen passengers waited in the chamber along with four stewards and a conductor. Jonathan knew a crew of four more would be in the chamber beneath their feet, tending to the boiler, air pumps, and radiators.