The Doomsday Vault (3 page)

An awkward silence followed, and Alice mentally kicked herself. “But not tonight,” she added hastily. “I haven't been out in so long, I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is. Dancing is so much fun, especially with a talented partner like you, Mr. Williamson.”

She couldn't quite bring herself to bat her eyes, but the flattery had its intended effect. His arms relaxed a little, and he smiled.

“What do you think of the orchestra?” he asked. “Now that it's working.”

“They play very nicely,” she said, and let herself sway a little more with the rhythm. “I love music of all sorts, but I have no talent at making it. Do you play an instrument?”

“I'm completely tone-deaf,” he said, and Alice was surprised at how deeply the admission disappointed her. “Lady Greenfellow's players need to be serviced more often,” he continued, oblivious. “The cellist wouldn't have seized up like that if I were in charge of it.”

“Are you an automatist by trade, Mr. Williamson?”

He shook his head. “My company makes machine parts. Automatons are a bit of a hobby. I think that's why your father is trying to fling us together.”

Alice's heart quickened despite her earlier disappointment. This was the main reason she was here, then. Norbert Williamson was a marriage prospect. He swung her around, and Alice smiled up at him. Her job was to be winning and witty.

“He shouldn't need to fling anything, Mr. Williamson,” she said. “If you enjoy automatons, we have a lot in common. What are your views on the idea that Charles Babbage took credit for Ada Lovelace's work with the analytical engine?”

“I do enjoy automatons,” Norbert said. “But for the moment, I'd prefer to dance with a beautiful woman.”

It was empty flattery, but it was nice to hear. They danced three dances before Alice pleaded the need to rest; Norbert immediately guided her back to the side tables and went off in search of refreshments. The moment he was gone, Louisa all but hurled herself into a neighboring chair.

“Norbert Williamson?” Louisa said. “How interesting.”

“What do you know about him?” Alice demanded. “Quick!”

“Very little. He's new to London. No title, so he's not a peer. He bought a factory, and it's making good money. He seems to have a lot of male friends, and for a while rumors were circulating that he runs with the bulls, if you know what I mean.”

“Louisa!”

“Oh, as if you've never come across the type.” Louisa laughed. “But lately he's been showing himself at a lot of social events and sniffing around some heifers. He's a traditional man, not Ad Hoc, and probably interested in your title.”

“He wouldn't get it,” Alice said. “It'll come to me, and then only because Father has no male relatives. After that, it'll go to my first son, never my husband.”

“Close enough for us mere commoners,” Louisa replied. “Puff up your chest, dear. Here he comes with the petits fours.”

Two more dances followed, and Norbert accompanied Alice to the buffet supper at one o'clock. Alice was starving, but she restricted herself to proper ladylike servings of veal escalopes, carrots Vichy, and gooseberry fool. Norbert, for his part, remained attentive and charming. Alice liked his company well enough, though she didn't feel any of the pounding, heaving, or poetic emotions referred to in any of the poetry or... less literary work about romance she had read over the years. Norbert certainly seemed interested in her, and Alice did find that both heartening and satisfying. It was nice to know someone found her desirable.

They were just moving back to the dance floor when a delicate brass dove fluttered into the ballroom and landed on Norbert's shoulder. With a surprised look, he opened a small panel on the back, removed a slip of paper, and read. Alice took the bird from him and examined it. The delicate work on the feathers was particularly fine. The glassy eyes were bright and alert, and it moved realistically in her gloved hands.

“I'm sorry, Miss Michaels, but a situation has arisen at my factory and I must leave,” Norbert said. “And here I was hoping to see you home. Do forgive me.”

And then he was gone, the dove fluttering after him.

“Everyone's talking about you,” Louisa said, appearing at her elbow like magic.

“Is that good or bad?”

“Hard to tell. Norbert Williamson is the joker in the pack. No one knows what he's really about, so they don't know how to react to him—or to you, now. But they're still not talking to you. The men are afraid of the clockwork plague, and the women are afraid that anyone who talks to you won't be asked to dance by anyone good.”

Alice sighed, suddenly tired. “Except you.”

“There are advantages to having one's own money,” Louisa said without a shred of self-consciousness. “Patrick Barton—the ash-blond one in the bad coat—is seeing me home tonight. And he'll probably have breakfast.”

It took a moment for the meaning to sink in. Alice snapped open her fan, scandalized. “Louisa!”

Louisa laughed again. “You need to have more fun, Alice. Call on me, darling. I should mingle.” And she left.

Exhaustion settled over Alice, and the ballroom air was loaded with heat from dancing bodies. She decided it was time to go. Lady Greenfellow hadn't stationed herself near the door yet, which meant Alice didn't need to bid her an official good-bye, though she would have to write a long thank-you letter later. She retrieved her shawl and allowed the manservant to open the massive front doors for her. The cool night air woke her a bit as the servant waved at one of the cabs for hire that waited in the circular drive. It was an old-fashioned one, with four wheels instead of two and a driver who sat up front. In the distance, faint music played—a haunting, compelling melody from a flutelike instrument Alice couldn't quite identify. To Alice's surprise, the servant handed the driver a sum of money and told him to take the lady home.

“Courtesy of Mr. Williamson, ma'am,” the servant said, helping her in.

Alice knew she should feel delighted that Norbert Williamson was expressing a continued interest in her, but now that she wasn't dancing, the champagne was catching up with her and she felt only sleepy. At least Father would be pleased. The cab clattered and rolled through gaslit London streets with Alice dozing in the back. The faint music she had heard earlier grew louder, irritating rather than pleasing. Far off, Big Ben tolled the time with his familiar bells—two a.m.—and the carriage came to an abrupt halt. Alice roused herself and turned to look out the side of the cab.

Facing her was a crowd of plague zombies. The first one reached for the door.

G
avin Ennock let the last long note slide from his fiddle and fade away. He lifted the bow from the strings and cocked a bright blue eye at Old Graf, whose own eyes were obscured by heavy brass lookout goggles.

“Ah, that puts heart into a man.” Old Graf sighed. His magnified gaze, however, never left the cloud-flecked sky ahead of them. A thin wind blew at their backs, not quite able to penetrate the pale, supple leather of the jackets and trousers they both wore. Overhead, the ever-present bulge of the airship's gas envelope blotted out the sun, though in a few hours, the sun would sink behind them, and the decks would grow uncomfortably warm. The netting that hung from the envelope creaked in a familiar rhythm, and the ship swayed beneath it. A faint vibration from the engine propellers came up through the soles of Gavin's boots. Far below, the Atlantic Ocean lay calm and flat and blue.

Gavin inhaled the sea air. His hair, a pale blond bleached nearly white by the sun, fluttered against his forehead like feathers. Gavin's face had lost its boyish roundness and acquired the more squared look of a man, but he was a little short for his seventeen years and had no hint of facial hair, two facts the airmen teased him about mercilessly. Old Graf never did, which was one of the reasons Gavin had come up to the lookout post at the front of the airship.

A seagull coasted past with a thin cry that started on an E-flat and descended to a gravelly A. Gavin echoed the bird's call on his fiddle, matching the pitches exactly. The gull cocked a beady eye at him, then dived away.

“‘Blind Mary'?” Old Graf said.

“How is
that
a song for a man on lookout duty?” Gavin countered with a grin.

Old Graf continued to scan the air ahead of them. They were on the forecastle, the foremost section of the ship. An airship like the USS
Juniper
didn't have a crow's nest—the cigar-shaped envelope precluded one—which meant the lookout had to be as far forward as possible.

“It's a taste of home,” Old Graf said.

Gavin set bow to strings and played. “Blind Mary” was an old Irish song, one of hundreds he'd picked up as a kid in Boston. In his head, he saw an old woman feeling her way along a country lane, and he let his fingers slide along the strings, playing her sadness and age. Gavin heard every note perfectly in his head. Each note, each chord, each song had its own unique sound, and it seemed impossible to him that anyone couldn't tell them apart. A and A-sharp were as different as red and blue.

Gavin let himself play with the melody the second time through, wandering with it as if Mary had lost her way, stumbling, frightened, but finding her place again at the last second. Yet, in the end, the song still left her blind and alone. Behind them on the main deck, some of the airmen paused in their work to listen until the song ended. Old Graf fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose.

“How is it that a seventeen-year-old cabin boy plays like an immortal angel?” he blurted out, then flushed slightly and coughed.

“It helps to have a fine listener.” Gavin clapped him on the shoulder. “My gramps gave me the fiddle, but he said the music is a gift from God. And Captain Naismith says I'll be a full airman soon enough.”

Old Graf's weathered face went pale. “Dear Lord.”

“My being an airman isn't such bad news, is it?”

“Gliders. Straight for us.” Old Graf flicked the lenses of his goggles up and reached for the alarm bell. Gavin grabbed the spare lookout helmet from the rack, jammed it on his own head, and looked through the lenses as Old Graf yanked the cord. Bells sounded all throughout the
Juniper
. Through the helmet lenses, Gavin saw ominous birdlike shapes zipping toward the airship he'd been calling home since he was twelve. They were painted blue and white to better hide in the sky, and part of Gavin was impressed that Old Graf had seen them even as the rest of him tightened with fear and dread. He counted eight, and there were probably more that he couldn't see.

“
What's out there, Graf?
”demanded Captain Naismith's voice through the speaking tube at Old Graf's elbow.

“Pirate gliders, Captain,” Old Graf yelled back, flipping his lenses back down. “I mark at least a dozen.”

“Not—yes! Welsh privateer, probably with a letter of marque.” He squinted through the lenses. “Gondolier class. Semirigid.”

“
All hands prepare for battle!
”boomed the captain.
“Drop ballast compression and take us up to fifteen hundred feet. We have two dozen gliders coming in. They'll try to get over the netting to attack the decks, so I want everyone who can swing a sword or fire an air pistol up in the ropes! Mr
.
Thomas, prepare to jettison the cargo. Master Ennock, get your ass down to the gondola, and I mean now!”

“Better hurry, boy,” Old Graf said as Gavin pulled the helmet off. “He won't appreciate it if you're slow.”

Gavin shoved his fiddle into its case and ran for it. He skittered down the ladder to the main deck, which swarmed with activity. Airmen boiled out of the hatchways, rushing to ready the ship for battle. Ports flipped open along the hull, exposing flechette and harpoon guns. Men in white and gray leather manned the pumps that forced ballast air out of certain ballonets inside the
Juniper
's envelope and inflated other ballonets with more hydrogen, allowing the ship to rise. Other men swarmed into the netting, climbing toward the envelope with compressed air pistols and cutlasses of tempered glass—only a fool used gunpowder or sparking steel near several tons of explosive hydrogen.

Gavin ran to the center of the deck and slid down the rails of another ladder polished by years of use, pausing only to drop his fiddle off in the crew quarters, where he stuffed it under a blanket and prayed no pirate would find it. Then he ran back to the ladder.

The
Juniper
was an American ship of American design. A web of wrist-thick ropes hung from an enormous, cigar-shaped envelope of gas and cradled what looked like a sailing ship with the masts removed. Fastened to the bottom of the ship and looking a bit like a glass bubble with a wooden bottom was the navigation gondola, where Pilot and the captain spent most of their time. Gavin dropped past two decks and out the bottom of the ship into the gondola.

The floor was solid wood, but the sides of the gondola were made of glass to give a good view in all directions, and now Gavin could see the gliders skimming ominously toward the
Juniper.
Speaking tubes sprouted from every cranny, and pigeonholes held rolled-up charts and instruments. Captain Naismith stood at the helm, his fingers white on the wheel spokes and his plain features tense. His dark blue captain's coat with its gold buttons and epaulets rustled not at all, and his hair remained hidden beneath his cap. Captain Naismith was a young man, not yet thirty, and he dealt with the grumblings of the much older men put under his command by expecting strict discipline from everyone, including himself.