Pinion (25 page)

After a few moments, the Chinese airships broke off and headed toward the African interior.

“I told them I will keep station for thirty minutes,” Sayeed said to Kitchens. “Then we will resume our flight. We are half a day from Ayacalong, and the work camp is a few minutes beyond that. We have twenty-four hours there; then we must head back toward England. Huang cannot divert his own men and ships for longer, and he cannot guarantee that another captain with ambitions may not close-haul down the Wall hunting British prey.”

“Why are the sailors silent on this?” asked Kitchens. “Theirs and ours? Surely the docksides know that enemy captains consort.”

Sayeed gave him a strange look. “You were never under arms. Enemy captains have always consorted. More than one battle has been won in advance by sheer common sense. This open signaling is a more rare thing,
as it is usual to meet in some low tavern where few will overhear. In any event, when has anyone ever listened to the tales of common seamen? Except for other common seamen, of course.”

After their thirty minutes had passed,
Notus
began to beat southward. Fingering the razor in his sleeve, Kitchens could still see the Chinese ships above the eastern horizon, but they had dwindled to textured ovals in the sky. If he simply challenged Sayeed, it would accomplish nothing. The crew would not take his orders in any case. He could not fight them all.

Instead, Kitchens watched abaft, to see if the little airship would swing round once again.

He tunnels through the rock; his eyes see all its treasures.          —
Job 28:10

Midday brought a clearing of the fog and no sign of
Erinyes
. Though he had become eager to depart, especially before the strange and irrational Lieutenant Ostrander made another appearance, Boaz stuck by McCurdy. The Brass recognized enough of al-Wazir in the bosun to stir his own conscience. He was certain that if he left this place without seeing to the bosun and his men, there would be no survivors.

Well played
, the mixed voice of Paolina and al-Wazir told him. The Seal just grumbled, a magic-laced cursing below comprehension.

He wondered if this was what humans felt in their heads, with their complex minds and contradictory ideas. Brass were certainty itself. Unwavering, unchanging, confirmed in their thinking. People had too many voices—if you knew them well enough, you could read it in their faces, hear it in their words. The monkey was never far from the surface, but below that were other, darker elements. YHWH had played a cosmic joke on His most beloved children, reproducing all of Creation within their heads.

Very few humans had the singleness of purpose that characterized all Brass. Well, all Brass other than himself. The most focused human he had met yet in his life was Dr. Ottweill, who was manifestly abnormal.

McCurdy certainly exhibited a divided mind now. He and Boaz continued their watch from atop the damaged stockade, though his men had left their defensive position hard by the Wall and spread out through the compound to pick over the wreckage for salvage, or so Boaz presumed. With the fog lifted, their sense of imminent danger had mitigated considerably.

The bosun was far from relieved by that. He tapped his fingers on the splintered wood, stared at the uncaring sky, studied the jungle below with the distant glint of the Mitémélé River at the port of Ayacalong.

“Under ordinary circumstances, Ostrander would be relieved of command,” McCurdy announced at one point, apropos of nothing. “Doing so under fire is far more serious.”

“Are you under fire now?”

McCurdy made no answer, but continued to fret at length. A bit later he asked, “Is it the Wall that makes us all mad?”

Boaz could offer no answer to that.

Several hours into the afternoon, he spotted an airship descending. “Chief, look,
Erinyes
.”

“No,” said McCurdy almost immediately. “That’s not a Cumaean-class gasbag. Looks more like one of the cruisers. Something along the lines of a Boxer-class. Or maybe an Artemis.” He squinted. “One of Her Imperial Majesty’s, to be sure. The Chinee run a different trim entirely.”

Boaz was not keen at the possibility of being taken on the ground by yet another crew. “I believe this is where my involvement should be terminated,” he told McCurdy. “Before they make their landfall.”

The bosun gave Boaz a sidelong look. “You going over the back fence now, John Brass?”

“The front stockade, I should think.”

McCurdy stared upward at the approaching airship. “Do you see
Erinyes
following behind her, much higher up? My little chicken has flown to the protection of an eagle.”

The appearance of the smaller vessel in no wise changed Boaz’ calculus. “All the same, you and your men will have that eagle to see you safely back to Mogadishu. With luck they may carry an officer who can be spared to properly command your own ship.” He nodded and slipped over the front wall of the stockade. When he hit the ground, Boaz looked up to see McCurdy on the rampart with his pistol drawn, but not pointed downward.

“John Brass,” the bosun said, hardly breathing. “Look you now.”

Boaz looked. Birds circled the incoming airship, a great flock of them.
No
, he corrected himself.
Not birds. Winged savages
.

McCurdy barked orders. “All hands to the stockade! Deploy rifles! I want sky watches above and behind us, with eyes right and left. De Koonig, you’ve got west. Shaw, east. Margolies, our backs. These bastards can drop on you like a stone from heaven!”

Boaz hesitated. If he sprinted, the sailors were unlikely to do him harm. They could scarcely give pursuit now.

But the winged savages disturbed the voices inside his head. The Seal continued to mutter, while the others gibbered with frightened anger.

He could not hope to defeat a whole flight of the decadent angels, but
he could stand against them far better than even well-prepared humans were able to.

Guns cracked high in the sky as sailors shrieked. The winged savages spiraled around their target like sparrows on a falcon.

Erinyes
closed faster, trying to catch up to the battle. Boaz could not say whether that was valor, madness or both. The larger ship circled, as though bringing her broadside to bear would somehow aid in repelling the flying enemies.

“Stand against them,” he said in a quiet voice. “Stand them down. They respect no life, not even their own, but if the price is too high, they will back away.”

He turned and scrambled to regain his place on the stockade next to McCurdy.

The airship trailed smoke as she approached. Winged savages continued to swarm. “Keep sighted in,” the bosun ordered, “but don’t fire except on my command.” Boaz held McCurdy’s pistol, their near conflict already forgotten. “That’s
Notus
maybe, or
Aeolus
,” the petty officer said. “Regulars on the West African station.”

Erinyes
was closing from behind, unheeded by the larger ship’s harassers. The stricken airship yawed suddenly, causing the winged savages to scatter. As they circled, she righted herself and opened up with her waist guns.

A party of the fliers broke off and dove in a sweeping arc, obviously intending to circle in ambush.

“Rifles fire!” shouted McCurdy.

This was extreme range even for a stationary target, but his volley had the intended effect of distracting the attack run. The winged savages’ formation broke up. They circled and turned their attention to the stockade.

“We’s in for it now,” quavered one of the men.

“Stand to,” McCurdy snapped. “We’ve got help coming down from the clouds. Our own boys and the tommies on that big bess.”

The large airship took advantage of the respite to issue mass fire from the rail as well as another volley from the waist guns. The rest of their attackers broke off to move into an attack from
Erinyes
.

“She’s dumped too much hydrogen,” muttered McCurdy. “Airship shouldn’t ought to dive that fast. We’ll not have nearly enough ceiling later on.”

Aeronautics went by the wayside as winged savages descended on the
stockade. Boaz stood, allowing himself to be prominently seen, and bellowed in Adamic,
“Heu!”

Away
, a command more properly used for dogs and demons.

Two broke off. Five more continued their dive, flying into the fire from McCurdy’s little party. Boaz held back his pistol until the last possible moment, then put a round directly into the face of a winged savage with raw blue-black tattoos across its cheeks and shoulders.

His victim screeched, windmilling as it lost control to smash into the stockade wall just below Boaz’ feet. Another pair flew past, bronze swords bloody, while the last two tumbled broken to the ground within the wall.

He looked frantically around. De Koonig was down, bleeding and crying, while another man—Margolies?—was missing his head entirely.

“Form back up,” shouted McCurdy. “Reload right smart! Help is coming now; we only have to live long enough to bring ’em in!”

The big airship was decidedly wallowing now,
Erinyes
circling her like a distressed mother starling. The winged savages had swung out in a wider arc and were overflying both vessels. They dove once more, seeking another opening for their attack.

When the volley opened up from behind the stockade—Ottweill’s men shooting over the head of McCurdy and his party—even Boaz was shocked. Though not so shocked as the winged savages who tumbled ragged and broken from the afternoon sky.

The docks were not busy with refugees, which surprised her. Several fishing boats were in, which also seemed odd for a midday. “Where is everyone?” she asked al-Wazir. “I would have expected more hulls.”

“Nae. Who would put to sea where any airship that happens by could bomb you to the bottom without a second thought? There’s all of India to disappear into just over those hills.” He maneuvered them close to a pier. “I am sorry to be asking this, but could you please secure us with yon line?”

Childress hopped up, grabbed the bow line, and climbed the ladder to tie the boat in place. Al-Wazir shipped his oars, then tossed her the stern line. Moments later they were both on the dock.

A squad of soldiers waited at the landward end. Childress had hoped to slip into the town unnoticed, but tensions were too high. She squared her shoulders and marched toward them, marshalling a convincing tale of being lost at sea.

“Ma’am, I am going to have to ask your business?” The squad’s leader was a boy so young he still shaved his pimples. His voice cracked with
uncertainty. His fellows were no older than he. When did the children come to work in the world, she wondered?

“I am an Englishwoman, a librarian going about her lawful concerns,” Childress replied with the full force of decades at Yale.

This time his voice positively squeaked. “Th-that would be up to Lieutenant Roche to decide.”

She leaned forward, forcing the boy’s discomfort ever higher. “And
who
is Lieutenant Roche?”

“H-he’s the officer interrogating everyone who doesn’t h-have papers to live in Panjim.”

Her reply was interrupted by a piercing whistle. Childress looked up as a larger squad of soldiers rushed past her, marching so fast they might as well have been running. She turned to watch them race down the water-front . . . for what?

A white motor yacht pulling up to the dock. It flew a British ensign. Nonetheless rifles were being pointed amid a great commotion and a man’s toneless shouting.

“
That
is Lieutenant Roche,” said the boy.

Childress allowed her voice a grim satisfaction that she in no wise felt. Still, one must play the part. “Then we shall go see what he is about.”

It wasn’t much of a harbor, footing what wasn’t much of a town. Wu leaned into Wang. “This is the place,” he said urgently. “You will go ashore and persuade them of our intentions.”

“What intentions?” Wang protested, watching as a covey of red-coated soldiers flooded the dock ahead of them, looking most unfriendly. “Our tale is as thin as the scum on last night’s rice water. Why do we put in here, now, when the navies are out in force?”