Brilliant Devices (7 page)

George the airman straightened and gave his companion a hard look. “What do you take me for? Contrariwise to what some might think, I’m a gentleman.”

“Thank you, sir,” Claire breathed, with such a gaze of admiration that two others left their drinks to join the little party.

As they stepped out onto the hard-packed gravel of the airfield, Claire’s gaze swept from left to right to take in her surroundings—equipment, the gentle, swelling curves of airship fuselages, mooring masts, the occasional crewman tightening ropes and inspecting landing wheels. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But she had not dealt with the dockside bullies who worked for the Cudgel without learning a thing or two.

“Gentlemen, I appreciate your protection,” she said softly, which had the effect of
making them close up around her in order to hear. “How far is it to the Tiller?”

“Half a mile or so,” George said. “Ten minutes if you don’t dally. We might catch your friends
if we pick up our pace.”

Claire obligingly matched his long stride, and the two others hustled to catch up. “So, missy, this here’s Elliot and I’m Reuben,” one of them told her.

“And you may call me the Lady.”

“Lady? You don’t got a Christian name?”

“She’s from the old country, you dope,” George said. “Can’t you hear it? That’s a title, not a name.”

“Oh.
A real ladyship? I ain’t never met one of those before.”

“
Title notwithstanding, I am honored to be among your company,” Claire said warmly. “But with the likes of Sherwood Leduc about, perhaps it would be best to keep my real name concealed for now.”

“Not meaning to alarm you or n
othin’, Lady, but ain’t nobody gets away with insulting Leduc,” Reuben said in a low tone. “We got a couple of his brutes on our tail right now, matter of fact.”

“I saw them,” Claire said. “
They are lurking under that enormous fuselage with the Iron Cross upon it, are they not?”

“
More fool them,” George said with a snort. “Ten to one the count’s men bag ’em before we go another hundred yards.”

Claire put
crest and title together. “That ship belongs to
Count von Zeppelin?”

“Yep. Never seen him, myself, and his crew don’t mix, but that ship arrived two days ago.”

“Why would they not mix?” Claire felt a little breathless at the prospect of a chance meeting with the man who had invented the modern airship. What an honor that would be! Not to mention she could ask him some rather troublesome questions about converting a steam engine to one that harnessed lightning.

“You can’t understand ’em, for one,
hawking and spitting in that Kaiser tongue. And for two, me="d for taybe they think they’re better’n us.”

“I doubt that very much,” Claire said
, reining in her excitement. “They are likely military men, and hence would put their duty before fraternizing with potential friends such as yourselves.”

“How would you know that?” George said
curiously.

But before she could answer, a shout came from the direction of the mighty Zeppelin ship, and three shadows detached themselves fr
om the darkness under it, outrunning and losing their pursuers on the far side of a pair of small cargo vessels.

“They’ve sussed out where we’re going and plan to circle around
to meet us before we get there,” Reuben said in a low voice. “Look clueless—and look sharp.”

Sure enough, they could hear music in the distance—a horn of some kind, maybe two. And in a lamplit space at the base of an empty mooring mast three men jogged into the circle of light
between their party and the Tiller.

“Why, those are two of the men gambling with Leduc,” Claire said just loud enough to be heard. “Do you suppose they are anxious to retrieve his—and their—property?”

“I suppose any sore loser would try. What’s the matter, Paxton?” George called as they emerged on the near side. “Surprised to find the little lady ain’t alone?”

“Don’t matter if she is or ai
n’t.” Paxton cracked his knuckles. “We aim to take back our property. She cheated at cards.”

“I did not,” Claire said indignantly, and reached
behind her to unholster the rifle. “I suggest you use what few brain cells remain to you and leave while you still can.”

“Or what?” Paxton laughed, and his companions moved a few steps closer. “These
airbrains will slap us with their gloves?”

Elliot growled and Reuben
offered a few most uncomplimentary speculations about the man’s lineage. Claire pushed the switch forward and the lightning rifle began to hum. Startled, George stepped to one side just as a rock whizzed past his ear from the darkness behind them and clocked one of Paxton’s companions on the side of the head.

He howled and George shouted, “Who’s that?” All three of Claire’s erstwhile protectors whirled, and Paxton saw his moment. He leaped forward, aiming for Claire, his arms raised as though he intended to bull his way through and grab her.

The rifle hummed happily at the prospect. She raised it to her shoulder, sighted, and fired. Paxton screamed as a bolt of lightning sizzled across the fifteen feet between them and engulfed his fisted right hand. Tendrils of blue light danced down his arm and his coat caught fire. His men tore it off him and stamped it out, but there was nothing they could do about the cauterized remains of the hand that would have beaten her bloody had she allowed it.

“You may take that back to Mr. Leduc as a warning,” she said politely as he wept and howled. “I dislike hurting anyone, but if he interferes further with
me or mine, I must and will prot

“You’d best listen,” came a voice out of the dark behind them. “Tell ’im the Lady of Devices sends ’er regards.”

Claire rolled her eyes as the two men still on their feet helped Paxton away. “Jake, there is no need to be theatrical. You sound as though you’ve been at the flickers.”

Jake emerged from under a neighboring fuselage. “Couldn’t resist, Lady.”

“What on earth are you doing out at this time of night? I thought you were safe in your berth on the
Lady Lucy
.”

“Wait—you know this rascal?” George had finally found his voice, although the whites of his eyes
still showed as his gaze swung from Jake to Claire. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that? And what kind of a gun shoots lightning instead of bullets?”

Claire patted the rifle
affectionately and holstered it. “Did you think it just for show?”

“I don’t make no assumptions about
a man’s ordnance,” George said. “Guess there was a few I shouldn’t have made about a woman’s, neither.” He grasped Jake’s shoulder and shook him. “I’d best not find out that rock was meant for me.”

“Course not,” Jake said. “You stepped practically in its path. I were aimin’ at that miscreant, obviously, or I woulda hit you instead of ’im.”

“Do unhand my navigator, George,” Claire said.

“Navigator?” the man snorted.

“Assumptions, George,” she reminded him gently.

“Fine.
Fine. You’re her navigator and—” He swung to Claire. “—
you
need about as much protection as a wolverine and—” He set off. “—
I’m
going to the Tiller right now and ordering up the biggest whiskey they got.”

“
I shall stand you all the first round,” Claire called after him, and then pointed up ahead. Two people were ducking into a low door in a long building that appeared to be half of a giant pipe embedded in the ground. “Look, isn’t that Alice?”

The good thing about airmen, in Alice’s mind, was that they tended to congregate with their own kind and exchange news, gossip, wind and weather, and general badinage. They rarely fought among themselves—they were a tightly knit breed, looking down in more ways than one on the men who chose a groundbound career. If a person needed to find information, an airman’s honkytonk was the place to do it.

The bad thing about airmen, as Alice had found in the Crown and Compass, was that you couldn’t count on them to stay in one place
very long. They were forever moving, following the wind. One word of a storm front and the whole flock of them would scatter like so many starlings with a ssnostartled cry of “Up ship!”, leaving you standing with your mouth full of questions and nothing to show for your pains.

Her father had been a mining engineer,
and had been gone most of Alice’s life, but she never gave up hope that somewhere there was an airman who remembered him and could point her to him. The fact that she didn’t remember him and couldn’t say what he looked like other than that one eye was damaged from falling rock didn’t stop her inquiring about him of every airman she met.

In Resolution, mind you, most of them were dead by the time she got to their wrecked ships, so up until now she hadn’t actually spoken to as many as she would have liked. But that one man in Santa Fe hadn’t been quite drunk enough to forget he’d seen a one-eyed man up here in the Canadas.

That was more than enough for her. It was more than she’d heard in years.

If her mother had been a different kind of woman, she would have stayed to keep her company in the afternoons, before business got going at the Resolute Rose. But
Ma, having become the hardheaded practical sort out of necessity, was Ned Mose’s kind of woman. A girl had to survive in any way she could, and Alice wasn’t about to judge the woman who had borne her for the choices she made.

She had to live with them. Alice didn’t.

She’d sent a pigeon from Santa Fe letting her know she was riding the winds and probably wouldn’t be back. There had been no reply, and Alice expected none.

Expectations were a luxury Alice Chalmers couldn’t afford. But hope didn’t cost a thing.

There was a commotion near the door and Alice turned to see Claire and Jake and a crowd of the rope monkeys who had been at the Crown all coming in together. Naturally, Andrew took one look and made the wrong assumption.

“Claire? Are you all right? Are these men being troublesome?”

“On the contrary,” she said gaily. “They are keeping me out of trouble. Andrew, this is George, Reuben, and Elliot. Gentlemen, this is Andrew Malvern, and the blond young woman at the bar is—”

“Alice Chalmers.” George touched two fingers to his brow in acknowledgement. “I see you found the place.”

“Your directions were precise.” She turned to Claire. “I’m going to make inquiries at the bar. Do you and Andrew and—Jake? What are you doing here?”

“He was filling in for the Mopsies,” Claire said. “May he come in?”

“If he stays out of the way,” George put in. “And don’t throw anything.”

Alice let this go as none of her business, though how these two could have a history in the ten minutes since she’d left the Compass was beyond her. Claire and Jake took a table, and the airmen joined them. Andrew stopped to speak with a man heading out the door, and Alice—you’d think she’d know better—felt a glow of warmth that he had got right down to the business of helping her.

But mooning over that wasn’t going to help her find her pa. She ordered something mild in the hopes that at some point later this evening, she would not be caught vomiting all over Mr. Malvern the way she had on the occasion of their first meeting. W Cst h="hen the barman didn’t seem inclined to move away, but stood there drying glasses, his gaze moving from table to table as he kept an eye out for trouble, she cleared her throat.

“Business good?”

“Middling. I was hoping the count’s ship’d bring in business, what with the size of the crew it carries, but no such.”

“You see a lot of traffic through here. Different crowd from the Compass, I understand.”