20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (21 page)

"Ma'am," he said with a nod. "Pleasure to see
you this fine mornin'. Lieutenant Commander Hieronymus Pritchard,
navigator. And you must be our Miss Llewellyn." As they all sat
down, he slid his stack of CDVs closer to him to clear a space for
her tray. "Let me make some room for you here. We're just doing a
little tradin'."

She returned his greeting with more of a
tremor in her voice than she liked. She had been shaky since she
had left the orrery the day before, slipping out as soon as she
could escape Dr. Pugh's notice. Violence should always be the last
resort. It frightened her when she lost control like that.

She nibbled at a piece of the crisp, salty
bacon and scanned the notices on the wall as the other three
continued trading. Caroline was keen on a picture of a stage
actress, and Mr. Pritchard wanted one of her Dickens cards in
return.

The number of notices on the wall had grown
over the last few days. Above the usual Sophie the Steamfitter
propaganda was a long banner declaring the number of days left
until Braking Day, which would mark the halfway point in their
voyage. The newspaper had been replaced with a typewritten sheet
entitled 'Wireless News'. According to its headline, France and
Germany were bickering over the Alsace and Lorraine provinces
again. There were more calls for labour strikes among the employees
of the major steel manufacturers, which also happened to be major
stakeholders in the TIA.

"Do you like the bacon, Miss Llewellyn?" Mr.
Pritchard asked.

The sudden question gave her a start. She
replied, "Well, yes. It's quite tasty, in fact. How big a supply
did we bring with us? Enough for the whole journey?"

"Well," he said, a bit of shy pride creeping
into his smooth voice, "it comes from my hometown. I was raised by
Shakers down in Kentucky. What you have there is the best that
Pleasant Hill hogs have to offer."

"Shakers?" she asked.

"What you might call a religious community.
The members don't marry, but they do take in orphans and raise them
'til they're old enough to decide to join or leave. There were
plenty of us to take in after the Invasion, let me tell you, so
they were plenty busy. I left -- I wanted to get married someday --
but I still keep in touch with them. They're my family. They gave
me a great education. They had one of the best schools in what was
left of the country after the Martians got through with us."

"Were all the schools destroyed?" Caroline
asked.

"No, we just lost a lot of people, teachers
included. My guardians did a fair job with the three R's.
Carpentry, too," he said as he flexed his muscular hands. "They're
famous for their chairs, you know, and there was a lot of
rebuilding to do. Their teaching was good enough to get me into the
Academy and onto the
Fury
. Some of the Shakers came down to
see me off and gave me plenty of good food for the journey, too.
They are pacifists, you know, so they aren't exactly screaming
Terra vigila
right now. Sort of a blessing for me, I s'pose.
I miss 'em."

His description reminded her a little bit of
her own school. Mrs. Brightman, too, had taken in many orphans, but
never had anyone asked to leave. Of course, she didn't recall
anyone asking her if she wanted to. It had never occurred to her to
do so. The thought stuck in her mind like a thorn.

"We brought lots of it," Pritchard continued
in a jovial tone, "but it prob'ly won't last the entire journey.
Not with hungry scientists on board." He motioned at Gemma's
rapidly emptying plate with his chin.

"We do have some live meat on the stable
deck, Ron," Nigel said. "But it won't be table-ready for a while.
Until then, most of the swine act as disposal units for the galley
scraps. They have a special dumbwaiter that takes buckets straight
from the galleys down to the stable deck. A conveyer belt takes it
the rest of the way, so the, um, fresh country air, as they say,
doesn't seep back into the galleys. Whatever the pigs -- er --
produce from that goes to fertilize the Gardens. Frau Knopf frowns
on waste of any sort, and we need to keep her happy."

Pritchard guffawed. "Oh, ain't that the
truth. She got angry with this one fella, last trip out, when he
complained that the bacon wasn't done to his liking. She burnt his
bacon -- only his bacon, mind you -- for the rest of the trip." He
said to Gemma in an exaggerated whisper, "You like your bacon. I'd
stay on her good side, if I were you."

Caroline, who had been studying one of
Pritchard's cards, looked up and asked, "Gemma, do you have any
cards to trade? Don't want to leave you out, love."

Gemma shook her head. "Oh, no, Caroline," she
replied. "My studies leave little time for much collecting. Except
for rocks, of course."

Caroline laughed until she snorted. "Well,
'bout time you started, right? Most of us have 'em. Gives us
something to do. Here," she said, "start with one o'mine. A hero
for my hero. You did defend my honour last night, after all." She
handed Gemma a card emblazoned with the sultry smirk of Sophie the
Steamfitter. "I've got three of this one."

Mr. Pritchard slid one of his cards over to
her. "A Robert Frost, for the pretty lady," he said. "Since you
brought us good luck."

Nigel grinned at her. "How chivalrous of you,
Ron! Well, I can't be left out! Would you like a Viscount Nelson,
Miss Gemma?"

"Hey, that one's mine!" Pritchard chuckled.
"Give her your
God Speed
. Everybody needs one of the
captain."

Nigel drew a card from the deck in front of
him and held it up. Caroline gasped at the sight of it. It was a
reproduction of Edmund Leighton's painting
God Speed
, which
had become very popular over the past few years: a medieval lady,
leaning across a stone railing, tied a red kerchief token onto an
armoured knight's arm, with said knight on horseback, ready to ride
to war. Only this time, it was Sophie the Steamfitter on the
railing, corset and short skirt in place with a bit of cheek
peeping out, with Moreau's helmeted visage gazing up at her with
gross affection. Gemma groaned inwardly at the tackiness of it,
thankful that it was just a painting. She wasn't sure she could
stomach a real-life image of such tripe.

Caroline, on the other hand, bounced in her
chair. "I can't believe it! You have one, you actually have one,"
she squealed. "Oh, Nigel, please--"

"Now, now, Yeoman," he said gently as he
offered the card to Gemma with a flourish. "I suggest you set up a
trade with Miss Llewellyn here, if you want it." He leaned towards
Gemma and said, "Look sharp with this one. She's a crafty trader.
My wife trained her well."

"Gettin' mighty thick in here," Pritchard
chuckled, waving his hand in front of him as if chasing an
unpleasant odour away. "I think I'll take my leave. I need to head
on up to the bridge, anyway. Heat ray tests later today, you know.
Pleasure to meet you, Miss Llewellyn. Chief, ladies, I bid you good
day." He gathered his cards and walked away.

Caroline showed Gemma the rest of her deck,
which she seemed ready to trade in its entirety for that one tawdry
card. Another one appeared at Gemma's elbow. She turned to look at
the giver and saw only the retreating back of a hunter green
jacket. The dog-eared card bore a blueprint of the
Fury
.

Once Pritchard was out of earshot, Nigel
leaned a little closer to Gemma and said in a low voice, "Don't
worry about Humboldt. As his boss, I have to do something about his
behaviour of yesterday. I won't put him in the brig, as much as he
deserves it, since I'd have to log his actual offense with the
captain--"

"--and that would be bad luck," said
Caroline.

Gemma gave the pair an odd look.

"Well," Nigel said, "let's just say that we
don't examine a good omen's teeth too closely 'round here. And I
think you gave him a good dose of humiliation to boot, so for the
most part I think he's been put in his place."

"Roger ain't a bad chap, Gemma, not really,"
said Caroline, "not until he gets into his cups. Which he does a
lot, so he can forget what his family did to him."

"Caroline!" Nigel snapped.

"Family?"

"She ought to know, Nigel. He ain't no
Orphan, not like us. His family's rich. Old money. They got estates
up in Kent, I think. Roger's always been a bit wild, I reckon, and
one day they just got shot of him. Paid him to stay out of England.
And he did, for a long time, 'til the Academy went looking for
Boolean candidates for the mission. TIA didn't care about family
backgrounds, long as we were good in maths. He signed on, but then
his family cut him off entirely. A bit strange, really, since you
can't get farther away than Mars."

"A true remittance man?" Gemma asked. "I
thought they were just in stories. Then he is still an orphan,
after a fashion, isn't he?"

Nigel answered, "He's had some rough patches,
to be sure, but that doesn't excuse his actions. I'll give him some
extra duties or something, though, and remind him to behave
himself. I'll have him archive the wireless messages or muck out
the stable deck. Maybe both."

"What you did was amazing, though," Caroline
chirped before popping another forkful of eggs into her mouth.
"Never seen a scientist move like that before. Your school may be
as tough as the Academy. Tougher, maybe."

Gemma wondered how Caroline could be so
cheerful all the time, with all the hardships she had endured,
having to live her life in a hideous uniform and look like a boy.
She simply could not understand it, and she was thankful yet again
to her mistress for rescuing her from such things; but deep inside
she began to wonder if she was correct in thinking that Caroline
must be unhappy.

Over the course of breakfast, the pile of
cards grew at Gemma's side as crew left for duty. By the time she
was finished eating, she had acquired five Dickens, a Darwin, two
Queen Victorias, two Lord Nelsons, a Baron Robert Baden-Powell, and
a picture of a rather sad-looking India rubber Martian.

Noticing Gemma's grimace, Nigel explained,
"Oh, that's just the Martian from the Badger 'n' Tentacle down in
Hammersmith. Leave it to the British to commemorate the Invasion
with a pub."

"I hear they built the bar out of the leg of
a walking machine," Caroline added. "Wonder how that got that past
the TIA salvagers."

Caroline then traded a picture of another
pub, The Falcon, Battersea, and one of the Badger and Tentacle, for
the Moreau card, much to Gemma's relief. She couldn't bear the
thought of
that man
knowing that she was toting his face
about in her pocket. Gemma was amazed to see a CDV of a pub;
apparently, there was an entire series of them.

"Humboldt's trying to get the entire set,"
Caroline explained. "He's been bothering me for this one for a
while."

Anything was better, in Gemma's opinion, than
that horrid painting. She would have given the card to Caroline
freely, just to be shot of it, if Nigel had not insisted on a
trade.

The Booleans bid her a good day as they left
the table. Gemma jogged the cards into a neat stack. She didn't
have enough time to return them to her room before reporting to
Pugh's office for the day. She'd simply have to endure his ribbing
-- or his advice, she wasn't sure which was worse -- about them. At
least he wouldn't see her with the Moreau card. Her new collection
did make her breathe more easily, though. This little pat on the
back from her shipmates was the bolster that she needed.

It was time to work on her special
assignment: the reading of the two ledgers. She could face them
now; she felt lighter and freer than she had in a very long time.
The crew wasn't afraid of her even after her tussle with Humboldt.
She was surprised at how much delight that gave her. Perhaps it was
because there was no physical escape from this place. She was going
to be with them longer than she'd ever been with a target before.
The farther the ship crawled along its course, the less it seemed
possible that there was a Watcher aboard. It had been hard enough
to smuggle her in -- how much harder it would have been to get two
on the ship! She had time, and time again, before they reached Mars
to find Orion.

There was no Watcher.

There couldn't be.

In the lift, she considered the possibility
that Brightman had meant OBERTH instead of ORION. The analytical
part of her mind quickly discarded the notion. Most previous
assignments had concerned small, portable oddments of science that
were easy to move and study, like an equation, a photograph, or a
chemical sample. Gemma found the notion of hiding the great Oberth
engines in the school cellar amusing. This mission did seem to have
thrown all the usual rules out the window, true, but surely Orion
was a formula, a file, something that she could transmit via
wireless or smuggle off the ship upon her return. Assuming she did
return.

She shook off the morbid thought and spent
the rest of the morning in a corner of Dr. Pugh's office,
sandwiched between two columns of musty books. She knew that it was
entirely possible that Orion was within arms' reach, but she did
not dare rifle through those notes, not with Dr. Pugh right across
the room. He drew odd twisting ladders upon the glass panel, looked
down at his notes, grunted, then erased and redrew. It was hard to
focus at times over the squeak-squeak of his writing, but she was
able to make some headway into the material he'd given her. It was
a refreshing respite from the deluge of chemistry notes bubbling in
her head.

She recognized the first after a few pages.
It was an account of the adventures of Pugh's mentor, Professor
Aronnax, on the
Nautilus
. She had read it at Mrs.
Brightman's insistence long ago. The professor and two other men
had had a remarkable adventure with the legendary Captain Nemo
decades ago, back in 1867. Brightman had explained how it was an
important example of scientific observation, and some of the
information had come in handy when she had assisted an
oceanographer in Sicily for a few months. He had studied the
maelstrom that had swallowed Nemo's vessel after Aronnax had
escaped it. She had no idea why this account might apply to their
trip to Mars; did Pugh expect to encounter a giant squid in
space?