The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) (3 page)

There was something about him that troubled the Tugrulians, and he was more than a little curious as to what it was.

Candice Mortimer read the letter from Captain Maxwell Endicott one more time and decided that his attempt to soften her up with sweet nothings before letting her know that yet
another
shipment of seeds had failed to make its way to the Tugrulian resistance just infuriated her. She threw the letter onto her cluttered desk and started complaining to herself. “Are there
no
reliable shady airship captains left in the world? What kind of namby-pamby sailor dumps the cargo overboard at the first sign of a Tugrulian patrol boat? One that won’t get paid—that’s who!”

She slammed the note into her bottom desk drawer and pulled herself up to her full yet modest height, still snorting with indignation. It was the sixth parcel of contraband seeds to be lost this month. And these were bush beans! Those plants could have been feeding some starving Tugrulian village in just under six weeks’ time. The waste of it just made her sick.

Candice looked at her watch. The
Brofman
would be making dock at Terminal Station in about three hours, and she would be standing at the end of the airslip personally to give Maxwell Endicott a piece of her mind.

With a full head of steam, Candice marched out of her office on a hunt for another fifty pounds of vegetable seeds, and possibly a red hot poker for her meeting with the captain.

Chenda looked into the mirror and ran her fingers through her short, spiky hair. Each day it bothered her more, those short scraggly locks. At the time she cut it, what seemed like years ago in Candice’s apartment, the night of the fire and the battle for her life with Daniel Frent, Chenda had done the best she could with the hair she had left. Truth be told, she had rather liked it on those first days aboard the
Brofman
. It was perky, different, and easy. The dark fringe around her pale face accented her dark eyes. Now, the pixie cut was just her daily reminder that nothing was changing for her. Her hair had not grown one millimeter since she returned to the
Brofman
four months ago.

In fact, nothing about her, physically, had changed at all in that time. The cuts and bruises she had on the day she entered the Dia Orella, mostly healed at the time, remained just so. The faint outlines of the injuries never fully disappeared, but nothing worsened either.

Then there was the other matter, the changes that come to a woman each month. It seemed that, along with everything else in her body, those had ground to a halt, too. At first, she held a wisp of secret joy, a possibility that she and Fenimore might just be on their way to having a baby together. But, as nothing turned into more nothing, Chenda started to realize her body was frozen: not healing, not growing, not changing at all. It frightened her. She suspected it had something to do with the power of the Pramuc, the gods-given gift placed within her so that she could carry to all people the message of the gods. “All gods are one god,” they had said. “Have faith.”

Looking at her body in the mirror, all she could see was doubt.

Chenda knew with certainty that the gods existed and what they could do. She had been in their presence and had felt their touch. Having faith in the gods was no problem, but in herself, finding faith was another issue. She wrestled the power of the Pramuc every day. It itched inside her, begging her to let it come flying out. She wondered if the gods had known what this much power in one human body would be like.

Fenimore helped her practice almost constantly. She worked at controlling it, using it, releasing it, testing it, discovering what she could do. When she had depleted her power, she studied, reading books on chemistry, geology, engineering, and so on. She had come a long way in four months, but she still felt she was only tapping the periphery of her potential.

Her body, although visibly unchanged, was indeed paying a price. Just as the marks on her skin remained constant, her weariness could not be refreshed. She slept, but the sleep was merely a void. There were no dreams, none that she could remember, and no feeling of restfulness upon waking.

Chenda was stuck, in every way possible, just as she was.

Fenimore found his wife at the sink staring at herself yet again in the mirror. “Beautiful as always,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. His long arms crossed over her belly and he slid the chilly fingers of his left hand between the buttons of her flight coat. The cold tickled through her linen shirt and into her skin, the sensation helping her tear her eyes away from her reflection. She kissed his cheek.

“
As always,” she repeated to herself.

Fenimore looked around the rented room. The pair had taken three days of shore leave at the seaside village of Musser Point as the
Brofman
and the rest of the crew headed into Coal City to pick up their next cargo. “Take a bit of a honeymoon,” the captain had ordered. Evidently, the rest of the crew was a bit annoyed with the newlyweds and their habit of disappearing for hours on end—the very second they were no longer on duty, they slunk off together. Most of the others were afraid to go near the undeclared-cargo hold, for fear of intruding on the young lovers.

As much as the crew of the
Brofman
worked as a well-oiled machine, Fenimore and Chenda were a society of two much of the time. Soul mates make for great romance, but they do alter the chemistry of a ship. Beyond that, Chenda, the only woman on board, kept the rest of the crew a bit off balance. The presence of a woman, even one as capable and remarkable as Chenda, put an uncomfortable curb on the men’s spitting and scratching. The absence of Verdu in the crew’s mix was keenly felt by all as well. Things on the
Brofman
of late were different and a little strange. The young lovers hoped that by taking this honeymoon, things might settle for everyone involved.

Fenimore eyed the giant claw-foot tub at the far end of the honeymoon suite. “I could draw you a bath, my darling,” he suggested, hopeful that he could distract her from her melancholy. She had remarked more than once that sponging oneself in the crew quarters was no way to get truly clean.

“
That would be heaven,” she said, and started to strip out of her aeronaut boots, quilted silk flight pants, and thick linen shirt while he ran the water in the tub. Once it was filled and bubbly, Fenimore kissed her and scooped her into his arms. Chenda wrapped herself around him and kissed him back. The passion between them never failed or faded. Every kiss was like a first kiss. The joy of it always surprised her; the spark was always there, feeding her and comforting her in a way that food and shelter no longer could.

As so often happened between them in moments of passion, everything went topsy-turvy: Fenimore found himself in the tub and, unlike his wife, without the benefit of first undressing. The pair spent the rest of the evening blissfully apart from the whole world. Giggles and bubbles were their only companions.

Candice tapped one foot impatiently on the landing as the
Brofman
drifted into the airslip at Terminal Station. Captain Endicott, standing in the wheelhouse, read the stormy expression on the professor’s face and struggled against the urge to throw the airship into full reverse and run with his tail between his legs. He reminded himself that he had personally faced down a dozen crazed Tugrulian warriors during the war and had fearlessly piloted his airship through the biggest hurricane in a century, so being too much of a coward to face his angry girlfriend (if that actually was still the case) would definitely put a kink in his manly swagger.

However, he truly believed that five feet of Candice was worth a mile of bloodthirsty Tugrulians. He swallowed his dread and slapped on what he hoped to be his most charming smile.

Stepping out onto the deck, he called to her, “Candice, my darling! You are a sight for sore—”

“
You just keep your
my darling
s, you swindle of an old coot!” Candice shouted back. Captain Endicott winced at what was sure to be a fiery round of nonsensical name-calling.

“
Now, now, Candice, let’s not get all bent out of shape. I did the best I could with the ship captain available at Atoll Belles. Beggars can’t be choosers—”

“
Beggars?
I’ll show you beggars! They are the children who are waiting for some food! Mercy Matilda, Max! How hard can it be to fine an honest patrol-running sea captain brave enough to deliver contraband to the resistance?”

The fact that she was serious about such an absurd request meant that there was no winning this argument. Captain Endicott lowered the gangway from the ship and strolled to where Candice was standing on the dock. His beefy arms grabbed her around the waist, and he tipped her backward, his kiss doing its best to stop the tirade issuing from her. It worked.

“
I’m sorry, love. But if you think you can do better,” he said as he righted her, “you can just be my guest and pick the next mule.” He winked at her playfully, still holding her against his thick chest.

Candice patted her blond hair back into place and eyed Captain Endicott meaningfully. The look made him nervous. She took a deep breath and said, “Fine.” Pushing away from him, she turned on her heel and walked up the gangway onto the
Brofman
. “I will. How long will it take you to get us back out of here and on our way to Atoll Belles?”

Captain Endicott opened his mouth to object—
too dangerous
was all he could think, but for reasons he could not quite come up with, he felt a kernel of rightness in the idea of Candice coming on board with him for the next mission. As much as his mind rejected taking her into any kind of danger, his heart broke into a sprint of joy.

“
As you wish, lady. But passage eastward, it’s going to cost you,” he said.

“
Not near as much as it’s going to cost
you
if you don’t get this sorry ship of yours under way with my seeds sometime very soon, love.” Candice, for all her petite appearance, had the willpower and presence of an admiral, and a salty one at that. Captain Endicott drummed his fingers on the side of his face, contemplating his lack of options.

Chenda sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub, staring out at the moonlit shore. Once again, she found she could not sleep. There was no point in trying anymore, so she stayed up with her thoughts. Wrapped in Fenimore’s large shirt, she contemplated the luxury of another bath, but decided against it. She did not want to wake her husband.

He needed a break from the constant activity on the
Brofman
as much as she did. He had acted as teacher, superior officer, guinea pig to her powers, and lover for several months now. A lesser man would have given up, or at least would have complained, but not Fenimore.

She shifted position to watch him sleep, and smiled as she took in his naked form. The moonlight enhanced the ridges of his torso, each muscle defined and each scar raised in the color-bleaching gloom. He was all shadows, accented with light.

Fenimore rolled over and stretched a hand out, sleepily groping for his wife. When he could not find her, he sat up and looked around the room. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Hey, what’s wrong? Why you up?”

“
I just couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“
Bad dream?” he asked as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on his pants.

“
No. Definitely not that. I just wasn’t restful.”

He moved over to the elegant desk against the wall and snapped on the lamp at its lowest setting. A pool of light splashed onto the desk and removed the deep shadows from Fenimore’s face and chest. He picked up a piece of the inn’s delicate stationery and started to fold the corners absently, not looking at Chenda. “Want to talk about it?”

“
There’s nothing to say; I just, I don’t know, feel a little wrong somehow.” She came to the desk and sat on his lap, wiggling her way under one of his arms. “You make it easier to bear, though. I love you.”

They sat there for a long time, simply being together, alone. Fenimore cradled his wife in his arms, gently brushing his lips across her hair, her ear, the end of her nose. She whispered sweet nothings to him as only she could, sending the messages directly into his brain as he touched her bare skin.
I love you . . . I love you . . . I love you always.

But, as it always did, the power of the Pramuc eventually built to an uncomfortable level, an unsafe level, and Chenda knew she had to burn off the excess.

Darling, I have to take a walk now
, she thought to him.
Don’t miss me too much
.

“
Are you sure you don’t me to tag along?” he asked.

She shook her head. She was almost embarrassed to have to go away from him for such an inconvenient problem. It was better to just go off alone and be done with it.