20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (24 page)

"We can look for flash powder," Gemma mused,
"but it may be difficult to trace it in the rest of this mess. But
I would also add that one would need chemicals and a private space
in which to develop any film." She knelt on the cleanest spot she
could find to get a closer look at a piece of shrapnel. "There is
one other problem."

The panel shard bore the name "Squid's Bane";
she smiled faintly at the nod to maritime tradition. She squinted,
as much to think about her next point as to see what lay in the
shadows beneath a chunk of ruined panel.

"And that would be?" asked Pugh.

"How useful would the images be? We will not
be back to Earth for some time. We cannot transmit those images to
Earth from here. We haven't advanced
that
much, unless the
Booleans have figured it out and haven't told anybody. I'm certain
that any images captured on this mission will have to be stored
until our return. Whoever wanted those images back home would have
to be very patient, indeed. Surely, they would have retrieved such
information before we left, whilst the shuttles were still moving
back and forth. It seems a bit late for that sort of skulduggery
now."

There was something underneath the broken
panel. It appeared to be a charred slip of paper. She was not quite
sure if she should reach for it and disturb the evidence. It might
be important; it might be nothing but doodles sketched by a bored
sailor.

"Hmmmm. Well, I do have to tell you," Pugh
said as he walked over to the scorched wall on the far side of the
room, "that within the TIA there are various philosophies
concerning this mission. One small but vocal faction did not want
this mission to go forward at all. Perhaps someone wants us to fail
early, and turn round, but in such a way that we can still make it
home. That would explain why they sabotaged the heat ray, rather
than the Oberths."

Gemma sat back on her heels and gazed at
other parts of the chamber, hoping that Pugh hadn't noticed she'd
seen something.

"A Peacenik? Or a Neo-Luddite? There are many
such. But it does seem like a waste of resources."

Pugh chuckled and leaned forward into the
wall. One long finger traced the blackened scar that raced across
it. "I see that Petunia did not neglect your political education.
Not everyone is obsessed with the Martians, you see. Some are more
concerned about other Terrans. And not in a polite way."

Whilst his back was turned, she answered, but
only to cover the noise of grasping the paper between two
fingertips.

"But why not cause the malfunction back at
Shackleton? Why take the chance out here, past the moon? Sabotage
at this point doesn't make sense. The saboteur would be in just as
much danger as the rest of us."

She sensed he was turning, so she released
her paper -- it felt like a card -- and turned to study another
pile of debris before he could fully view her.

"So, perhaps an accident," he said. "I
certainly hope poor Miguel doesn't snuff it because a bolt was out
of place. Hardly a blaze of glory. He deserves better."

The elderly scientist shuffled over to the
gaping hole that had tried to eat the first mate. He bent over as
much as he could to peer into it. He grunted as he did so, and
Gemma took advantage of the noise to retrieve the card and drop it
into the pocket of her skirt. It might be nothing. It might be
everything. But she wanted to examine it before revealing what she
had found.

"It's no good," his muffled voice told her.
"I'll need an electric torch to see up in here. I'm not
mechanically minded. We'll need for an engineer to take a look." He
backed his head out, and his voice grew louder. "Perhaps one of the
gun crew lads if they aren't too injured. Maybe Nesbitt or
Pritchard. He's good at this sort of thing. Hui, too, might want to
have a gander. I think we're damned lucky we didn't have a hull
breach."

He struggled to stand back up. Gemma hopped
to her feet and sprinted over to help him. He smiled in spite of
his arthritic groans.

"Ah, your knees are some decades younger, I'm
afraid," he said through a wince. "Don't grow old, child. Who knows
what Brightman will do when it is time to put you out to pasture?"
He coughed and finished straightening himself up. "Thank you, Miss.
That will be all for now, I think. I want the scene to be
undisturbed until Hui has seen it. Until then, find something
useful to do, why don't you? I don't think I have to remind you
that it's better if you keep this quiet. Let the captain make any
announcements about this."

"Yes, Dr. Pugh. Should you need me--"

"I'll give you a screech down the pipephone.
Highly unlikely today, I should think. Should you have any
additional ideas, though, leave a note on my office door. Go have a
cup of tea or something, there's a good lass."

"Dr. Pugh."

"Yes, Gemma?"

"Why do you care? I mean, why do you care to
turn my abilities to a higher purpose, as you said?"

He blinked at her and did not speak for a
moment. When he finally did, he asked, "What happens to you Girls
when you are too old to ply your trade? When your charms fade? You
won't be young forever, Gemma. You will need somewhere to go." He
cleared his throat. He waved her on. "Now, go, child. I'm
busy."

She turned to go, leaving him to puzzle over
the scene and herself to puzzle over the enigma of Dr. Elias
Pugh.

With the first free time that she had had in
a while, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. She had not yet
picked up her wireless messages for the day. After what she'd seen,
a good brisk walk to the command deck might be refreshing.

Once there, she received a folded message
from one of the junior officers through the window. The stack of
waiting messages was quite tall, with the attached grease pencils
dangling from the sides of the frames. She couldn't see around the
window into the bridge, but she could hear the edge of panic in
their voices. They might not know everything, but they had all felt
the rumble of the explosion.

"I wasn't the glitch for this mission, after
all," Gemma whispered aloud to no one.

It was not quite time for tea, so she headed
back to the privacy of her stateroom to decode the message. She
grabbed her grease pencil and her volume of Lyell and set to
work.

She decoded it, letter by letter, thinking
more about the situation around her than the message. She ran her
fingers up and down the lines of text, counting, and wrote another
letter on the mirror.

The blackened walls of the gun control room
and the blood on its floor tugged at her mind. Was it sabotage? Was
it an accident? The only thing she did know was that she was not
the cause. She thought about Dr. Pugh and his strange -- and
somewhat endearing -- need for her to assist him. She thought about
the captain and the hollow look in his eyes.

When she scribed the last letter onto the
glass, she stepped back and read the message there. Then she reread
it, her mouth agape in growing horror.

NAUGHTY ARTEMIS. STOP PLAYING SHANGHAI. FIND
ORION.

Gemma had not yet informed Brightman of the
incident with Humboldt. In fact, she had not intended to, after the
crew's positive reaction. What good would such a report serve? How
else would she find out, being so far away?

Gemma had managed to convince herself that it
would be impossible to smuggle two people aboard.

But
someone
had reported back to
Brightman. Only Brightman would know about the Man from
Shanghai.

Someone was Watching.

~~~~

Christophe

Christophe stared into the blank page of his
log and tapped the pen against the desk. The words to describe what
had happened would not shake themselves loose from his stunned
mind.

Thorvaldson needed more details than
Rathbone's hurried missive. But how could he distill the acrid
stink of smoke, the drying crimson mud on the floor, and a man's
agony into something so small as words? What alchemy transformed
such heavy thoughts into invisible waves that flew back to Earth?
How could he say that their only defence was now useless? That they
were sorely unprepared for this battle? That this great iron beast
had tried to devour yet another member of his crew? That the lunar
voyage had been just an appetizer for her? That this was all a big
mistake?

Grateful to be alone so no one could see his
trembling hands, Christophe set it down, word after word, until the
page was full.

~~~~

Gemma

There is a Watcher here
.

The thought nailed her to the spot. It
crawled across her skin like a mass of angry spiders. Who was it?
Was he -- or she -- searching for Orion as well? Or were they to
ensure that she did not abandon her mission? How long did she have
before they took action against her?

The brief peace that she had found on the
ship was now shattered into as many jagged pieces as the console
that had shredded Cervantes. A peace she didn't know she needed was
gone.

When she was able to move again, her mind set
to work. She was used to playing with her Watcher's identity, as a
game to alleviate some of the ennui of her more humdrum
assignments. But this was not going to be a game. She examined her
first clue: the message itself.

On further study, she saw something that she
had not noticed earlier. Part of the message, the header, did not
seem quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something
was not the way it should be. It wasn't wrong enough that she
couldn't decrypt it, of course, but something did not fit.

Perhaps the message wasn't even authentic.
That would be even worse. If it were not Brightman, or her Watcher,
that had sent it, then there was someone else on board who knew
what she was, someone who knew Brightman's code. The extra copy of
Lyell in the Cohort Conference room strengthened that
possibility.

She paced her room; she was a restless tiger
in a shrinking cage. The
Fury
on any other day felt like a
colossal vessel, but now it shriveled about her.

Her intestines melted into jelly as
realization washed over her again. Alone with her anxiety, her
nerves rattled like dry leaves in a frigid winter gale. There was
no one to turn to here, no Philippa, no Mrs. Brightman, even. She
found herself wishing for Pritchard's deep rolling voice or Nigel's
wit or Caroline's cheerfulness to distract her. But she could not
let them see her fear. She could not reveal its source. She must
present a placid surface to them. She must bury the maelstrom.

Authenticating the message was the only way
to move forward. But how?

Crickets
, she thought.
Blast
Humboldt for starting all this
.

Humboldt. She remembered something Nigel had
said about him earlier, something about him working with the
wireless messages and the analytical engine. Would he have a full
record of the message? As much as she wanted to avoid the cretin --
the only person on the ship that was possibly more boorish than the
captain -- Humboldt might be her only hope.

She retraced her steps to the command deck,
except this time she headed for Informatics. She wasn't sure where
Humboldt would be this time of day, but Informatics was the best
place to start.

Sure enough, he was there, slaving away over
a cardpunch machine. There were a few other Booleans present, but
Nigel and Caroline were not among them. Perhaps their shift had
ended for the day. That was fine with Gemma. This would be easier
without them. The fewer people that knew about her little issue,
the better.

She timed her footsteps with the regular
clack of his typing so that he could not hear her approach. As she
moved closer, Gemma surmised that this must be his normal station,
as the wall behind it fairly groaned with the CDVs of pubs that
hung upon it; The Blind Beggar, The Dove, and Dirty Dick's at the
top overlaid pictures of The George and The Grapes. And, of course,
there was the inevitable row of Sophie the Steamfitter cards lined
up below them. She patted her skirt pocket and felt the weight of
the cards she had received that morning. The Falcon and the Badger
and Tentacle, absent from the wall, were in her stack. She
straightened her spine and took a deep breath before tapping him on
the shoulder.

Humboldt yelped and nearly fell out of his
seat. He cringed at the sight of her.

"Oh, it's you."

"I apologize for the intrusion, Mr.
Humboldt."

He turned back to his work and started typing
again. Gemma retrieved her small stack of CDVs. Her fingers brushed
the edge of the burnt one as she pulled them out of her pocket. She
had nearly forgotten it in the chaos of her latest message. She
left it hidden and rifled through the stack to find the two pub
cards.

She dangled the Badger and Tentacle in front
of Humboldt's face. His fingers froze after one last agitated
CLACK, and he looked up at her with suspicion dancing in his
eyes.

"I believe we started off on the wrong foot,
Mr. Humboldt. I've come to make amends," she said with the sweetest
voice she could summon. "I've brought a peace offering for your
collection."

He tapped his fingers on the edge of the
keypunch and stirred in his seat.

"Are you certain, Miss Llewellyn? M'pride is
still bruised." He rubbed his hip and continued with a pout, "Not
to mention m'arse."

Ah, the negotiations begin
, Gemma
thought.
Good
.

She waved the other pub card in front of him
in the most tantalizing way possible, as if she were wafting the
enticing fragrance of bacon towards him.

"I'll make you a deal, Mr. Humboldt. If you
keep your hands off me, I'll keep my boots off you. Agreed?"