The Oilman's Daughter (8 page)

“Either of you ever sleep in space before?”

Jonathan and Porter glanced at each other and shrugged.

“
Bozhe moy
. All right, you want to be in bag to sleep to keep yourself from floating around cabin and to keep your arms from smacking things. Now,
Gospodin
Orbital, if you will bring tanks around to aft, we will get them all hooked up right.”

Installing tanks was, at least, something Jonathan had done before. Even without gravity on his side, he got the tank of compressed air locked into place and the hoses screwed in tight into the nozzles. He found that the lack of gravity made moving the heavy water tank a much simpler task. With both tanks dogged down and their fluid contents moving to Gusarov’s satisfaction, Jonathan bent himself to the task of packing coke into the metal drawers, which they would slide into the furnace when needed.

At last, Gusarov declared they were ready to cast off. He sealed off the airlock door himself, then Porter and Jonathan unscrewed the heavy bolts holding the
Condor
to Pinnacle Station. Gusarov helped the two passengers secure themselves to stanchions using additional straps in preparation for the acceleration. Finally, the legless pilot strapped himself into his seat and grabbed a lever. Outside the leaded windows, a silver mirror extended. Gusarov twisted the lever to rotate the mirror around.

“I am checking for ships approaching from aft,” he said. “Would not do us any good to cast away and drift into path of schooner or cutter. Looks clear. Hold on, comrades.
Condor
has bit of kick in her ass.” He spun a wheel to dial up steam pressure, and when the gauge reached a number to satisfy him, he pulled back on the throttle lever.

The furnace roared, the boiler hissed, and the
Condor
shot away from Pinnacle Station like a bullet. Jonathan gasped; he’d never felt acceleration so forceful in his life. He glanced over at Porter, who at least had the credentials of a war veteran, but the black man’s skin had gone ashen with fear. The entire ship felt like it might shake itself to pieces at any moment, but Gusarov didn’t seem bothered in the least. To the contrary, as his hands flew from lever to wheel to lever in an intricate ballet, he sang some Russian song in a lusty baritone.

“
Oy, nye platsh, nye platsh, maya Marusya
” He cranked first one wheel then another to deploy the radiators out to their full spread. “
Ya morskomu dyelu na-utshusya
” The sweltering heat from the furnace became almost tolerable as the stovepipe’s radiator fins shed what heat they could. “Coming about, comrades. Hold onto your sacks.
I nazad, skorey nazad vernusya
” Gusarov moved like a man possessed, or at least one with extra arms to replace his missing legs. He opened some lines and closed others to shunt the exhaust into the steering jets. “
Na tibya, krasavitsa, shenyusya
”

The
Condor
spun around like its namesake and the brilliant blue of the Atlantic Ocean filled the glass to the front. Even with Jonathan’s teeth rattling in his head from the shaking of the hull and his guts sloshing around like snakes in a jar, he could make out the outline of Spain’s southern coast. Gusarov continued his song as he stopped the
Condor
’s spin and got her nose pointed down toward Spain. He swept the skies with a telescope, but shook his head. “No sign of her yet, my friends, but do not worry. If we do not catch
Palmetto
on way down, we will hook her on way up. In meantime, smooth sailing from here down. Shove another tray into furnace and we will have quick bite and game of cards,
da
?”

With the
Condor
under acceleration, there was a semblance of gravity against the aft bulkhead. Gusarov used air from the tank to inflate three oilskin bags into makeshift chairs and an overturned tin washbasin made a reasonable tabletop. The three men played poker for quite some time, using dried beans for currency. Every two hours, Gusarov would ascend a rope dangling from the pilot’s station, drawing himself up hand over hand and scan the skies through a brass telescope. “I look for glow of her radiators and plume. No sign of her yet, but do not worry. We will catch her before long.”

Six hours later, all three men were sick of cards. Porter retired into a body bag. Jonathan felt like he could use some rest himself, but wasn’t ready to try to sleep amid the din of the
Condor’
s passage. The thunder of the engine had altered in pitch and timbre as they flew along. Gusarov explained it was the wisps of air at the top of the atmosphere rushing along the stovepipe’s hull that made the noise. “If Palmetto
is already to transfer depth, we have to plow through lot of sludge to reach her.”

“How far down is that?” asked Jonathan.

“Good
schooner can drop down as far as fifty miles up before Earth reclaims her, and crewed dirigibles can come up thirty miles if crewmen have suits and canned air. When they reach top shelf, they load middleman with payload and inflate it. Then squeaker raises it last twenty to dock with schooner.”

“Middleman? Squeaker?” Jonathan felt like he ought to know the terms, but the spacer slang escaped him.

“Middleman is high-altitude balloon. You cannot use them lower because they are so fragile that winds tear them apart. Squeaker is pilot breathing helium-oxygen mix. Lighter and safer than nitrogen.” Gusarov raised his telescope once more. “Take special kind of crazy to fly middleman. I was going to try once before I lost legs. They make good pay, and from what I hear, they need it. Men not meant to breath heliox. Drives them all cracked.”

Jonathan smiled. “Some would say men weren’t meant to leave Earth at all, and yet here we are.”

Gusarov sniffed in derision. “Earth. Great dustball choking on coal smoke and suffering of men. You can have her. I would rather have space aloft in ether.”

Jonathan couldn’t hear anything but pride in the man’s voice. He was a true spaceman, a resident of the stars. Gusarov had the same kind of vision that Jonathan’s grandfather and father had about the call for men to someday leave the embrace of Earth and tame the wilderness of other worlds. The CR was the first step in that dream, and men like Gusarov would carry it forward. Jonathan thought of what life in this void might be like and grew cold inside. Space travel was a means to an end for him, not a lifestyle.

“You’re not afraid of dying in space, maybe all alone?”

Gusarov looked down at Jonathan with a mixture of curiosity and pity on his face. “
Bozhe moy
,
Gospodin
. Man can die all alone anywhere. May as well be someplace he wants to be.”

“How long have you been up here?”

“Long enough to know I do not want to go back. Never mind that without pegs, I am just doorstop down in mud. My heart could not take strain of Mother Earth’s tender mercies. After St. Petersburg, I thought it is not right men wield such power for destruction.”

Jonathan thought of the devastating atomic blast in Russia that had killed millions. “I always thought it was an accident of some kind. Like the one that nearly killed Rutherford and the Curie sisters.”

“No, St. Petersburg was no accident. It was designed assassination of Alexander III. No need to poison food or shoot man in head if you have atomic bomb,
da
? I saw aftermath from dirigible. No soul living nor building still left standing.” He sighed. “I knew lovely girl in St. Petersburg when I was but your age. I hope she was long gone by end. After I saw that horror, I swore never to return to planet of birth again.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Jonathan. “Honestly, were I in your place, I likely would have done the same. But there is a bright side. You might not even be here in space if not for the Curies. Atomic power is what let us build McKinley Tower and then Roosevelt Station.”

“
Da
. I worked construction on Roosevelt before joining schooner crew. I will never forget working in noonday sun while surrounded by darkness, shooting rivets with machine that breathed air faster than entire crew.” Gusarov smiled at Jonathan and turned his eye back to the telescope. “Ah, there she is!” He squinted past the eyepiece into the bright Earth-light, and then looked through the brass tube once again. “She is already climbing.
Bozhe moy
, she is ahead of schedule. Nothing to be done about it now. All we can do is try to match her velocity before she climbs past us or else we may as well give up.”

“Do what you have to,” said Jonathan. “It’s imperative that we speak to a man on that ship.”

“You are paying bills,
Gospodin
Orbital. Best you wake up your man back there. Things might get hairy in next hour.”

One day into the three-day voyage to the Lagrange Sargasso, Captain Phinneas began to think they might make it in one piece.

Then his passenger awoke.

The string of curses that erupted from Cecilie Renault’s mouth would have burned the ears of the saltiest
Ethershark
crew member. Even with his classical education, Phinneas couldn’t keep up with her rapid-fire insults in blistering French. At one point, he even thought she’d accused him of smelling like beef and cheese or eating his own smegma. At last, she wound herself down and took to staring stone-faced at him and muttering more filthy phrases under her breath when he wasn’t looking.

Her apparent calm relieved Phinneas. Panic had killed many space travelers in the two decades men had traveled above Big Blue, and he wasn’t anxious to have his name added to that list. He thought lightening the mood would make the remainder of the trip pass faster. “Does yer father know his wee lass’s mouth is worse’n a drunken pirate’s?”

“
Je m’en fou.
What difference does it make? He’ll never see me again.” She squirmed around in her harnesses in the acceleration chair beside him. Phinneas had fastened them around her before taking flight.

He’d considered whether or not to tie her down with additional ropes, but space flight being what it was, he knew at some point he might need her help, and if it came to that, he wouldn’t have time to untie her. It was risky leaving her unbound, but he figured if worst came to worst, he could punch her out again.

In her recent fit, she’d managed to get her skirts all twisted around and riding high up on her thighs. Phinneas’s gaze lingered on her smooth flesh longer than it should have before he blinked and made himself turn back to the endless task of keeping the wayward vessel on course for the distant outpost.

“Just remember, it’ll be yer fault if you don’t make it back.”

She snorted in frank disbelief. “I know you won’t kill me. Beat and torture,
mais oui
, but if I am dead, you get nothing. These captains of industry, however, will kill me after they get what they want. You know this to be true, Phinneas.”

Hearing his name in her mouth gave him an unexpected jolt. He cleared his throat and glanced at her. She regarded him with a cool, resolute expression which told him she had no illusions about her future. In his drive to capture her, followed by the chaos of losing so many of his crew and nearly the
‘Shark
as well, he had given little thought to what would happen to her after the deal was done. Piracy was business, and he’d always treated it as such. When he dealt with prisoners, they were usually quick snatch and grabs during the course of a standard pillage. They were then exchanged for ransoms and returned to their families. He didn’t like getting his hands bloody. This mission had been a first; never before had he been contracted to capture a specific person, but the sums involved were too large for him to say no. His future—and that of his men—was his primary concern.

But Cecilie was right. Once she handed her father’s secrets over to his employers, they’d have no reason to keep her alive. Indeed, they’d find her death a far more convenient solution than returning her to France where she might muster Interpol or attempt to litigate. Her father would likely meet a similar fate.

“Aye, that may likely be.”

Her jaw clenched with his admission, but she kept her head high and proud, unwilling to display weakness even in the face of her own mortality. “I thank you for your honesty.
Merci
.”

They rode in silence for a little while longer. Something about the young woman made Phinneas feel uncomfortable and vulnerable in the stovepipe’s close quarters. The air, filled with the reek of coke, bore a softer scent that he could only identify as uniquely feminine. After spending years in cramped quarters with his men, it was like a cool southern breeze on a hot day at the University of Delhi where he’d schooled. He found himself wishing she’d say his name again, and his gut gave a nervous twist at the implication. Falling for this woman, or any woman in his line of work, would be dangerous and absurd. His lengthy celibacy since the crew’s last visit to the Sargasso probably had something to do with his feelings, and he looked forward to getting a little more space between them to clear his head.

Phinneas forced himself to focus on operating the ship’s array of levers and wheels and keeping his eyes pointed toward the distant twinkling lights of their destination. By the next day, he’d be able to make out the ugly metal bulges and twists of the
Albatross
and her array of makeshift outriggers, Fultons, and gun platforms in his telescope. The outlaw space station was a mecca for types like him looking to get and give the sort of dark work that kept him in business. It was also dirty and brimming with questionable drink and rowdy, oddly flexible women who would do near anything you asked for a small price. He became so immersed in the task of flying and recalling his many adventures in those dank and exotic rooms and passageways that he didn’t realize Cecilie had leaned in closer until he felt her breath on his ear.

Looking over, he saw she’d unhooked her harnesses and closed the already cramped distance between them, her face open and inviting. Lush lips parted, skin like fresh cream, long eyelashes that nearly swept her cheeks when she blinked. He pushed her back.

“Just what’re ye tryin’ ta pull?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t entertained certain thoughts, Phinneas. You must have.” Her voice had fallen to a low purr that he could barely register over the throaty racket of the stovepipe’s boiler. She’d also said his name again, almost like she’d seen it’d had an effect on him the first time. Observant doxy she was. She placed her hand on the back of his neck and gave it a stroke.

He jerked and his head banged against the ship’s hull hard enough to make it ring with a hollow gong sound. “Get back in yer seat before I tie ye into it.”

Her lips curved into a mischievous grin. Instead of backing away, she moved herself tighter against him. One of her breasts pressed against his shoulder, and she nuzzled her lips briefly against his neck and ear. Fine beads of sweat sprang onto his forehead and a chill flew down his spine. “You don’t have to pretend for my benefit. I know you were thinking about it when we first talked. When I was tied to your bed. You could have tied me down here, but instead, you left me free to do this . . .” She traced the curve of his ear with her fingertips and gave a gentle tug to the golden hoop he wore through it.

The softness of her body, the lavender-sweat smell of her hair created an atmosphere that made his head fuzzy, like he wasn’t getting enough air. His body had mutinous intentions. Phinneas swallowed and heard his throat click.

“Pilotin’ sometimes needs a third hand. If I’d tied ye down, it could have meant trouble for both of us.

“
Mais oui
. Of course. What sort of trouble are we in now, Phinneas?”

His thoughts had strayed from piloting instead to the body bags rolled in their netting against the bulkhead. Sex without the aid of gravity was an art form unto itself, taking a lot of practice and gymnastics, but the bags helped to that end. Not that he should be thinking of such things. “We’ll be in a lot of trouble if I can’t keep us on course.”

“A masterful pilot like you? I think you can manage.”

Her face was so close he could have stuck out his tongue and licked her nose. Or her lips. One of her curly locks hung down to obscure one of her eyes, and he fought a strong urge to reach up and push it away. His last vestiges of resistance melted away when he felt her warm hand against the top of his thigh. “What did ye have in mind, then?”

She leaned in and kissed him. It was the most delicious thing Phinneas had tasted in years, like ripe fruit after years of stale bread. Plunging his hands into her hair, he pulled her closer, consuming her lips with a hunger he didn’t realize he had. Excited little moans escaped her as her hands explored the back of his head and neck, and he was just reaching up to cup her breasts when she pulled away, panting and flushed. “If we mean to do this, I would like to freshen myself.”

She had bewitched him. If she’d asked to fly to Saturn at that very moment, he would have plotted the course without another word. The rational part of his mind, the one that lived in his bigger head, rattled its cage for him not to sacrifice everything for a piece of fine Parisian arse, especially one as cunning as this one had proved to be, but he couldn’t hear a word over the hum of his hot blood. He raised a shaky finger and gestured toward the aft of the ship.

Cecilie brushed his cheek with her lips before squeezing past him toward the tiny living quarters. Phinneas ran his hands over his face and tried to get his self-control back. She couldn’t escape from the ship. If she was playing a game, he wasn’t sure what goal she sought, other than to soften him toward her a bit. It was a pointless enterprise. He wasn’t going to fall in love with her and have a change of heart just because she opened her legs to him. They’d get their jollies and it would still be business as usual in the end.

Cecilie crawled back up into her seat a few minutes later, looking refreshed and confident, but without a trace of the sexual energy she’d exuded moments before. Buckling herself back into her seat, she sat back and stared straight ahead.

A trickle of cold caution wormed its way into Phinneas’s gut and extinguished the fire that had been kindling there. What just happened? He couldn’t escape the certainty that she’d just tricked him somehow. “What’re ye playin’ at?”

“Do you want my father’s oil refining secret or not?”

Phinneas’s mouth gaped open. The wench had outsmarted him once more, and he realized that the men in Houston hadn’t hired him to kidnap some helpless little flower, but to snare a cobra. “I should’ve known ye had somethin’ up yer sleeve.”

“So sorry to disappoint you,
Monsieur
.” She smiled and flicked her eyes downward toward the shrinking bulge in his trousers.

He lashed out and seized her shoulder. Her cries of surprise and pain pleased him. “Ye best not forget who yer messin’ with, lass. I may not kill ye, but yer makin’ it worth the reduction in pay to deliver ye with every bone in yer body broken.”

Cecilie put on a show of pouting. “Is this how you treat me after I offer you all the riches in the world?”

He released his grip and shoved her away. “What would I want with some old quack’s scribblings? There’s no oil on the moon or in space. Them’s the concerns of earthworms.”

“I must have mistaken you for a man of vision. This technology will revolutionize space travel, not to mention our whole way of life on Earth. Vehicles that run on efficient refined oil rather than coal could travel farther and faster. Every industry could benefit from the use of refined petroleum. With the ability to control such a resource, you would be the richest and most powerful man on Earth or in space.”

“And ye’d share this with me, why?” He knew there would be a catch. There was
always
a catch with her.

She met his gaze with her own. “I don’t want to die, Phinneas. Those men will dispose of me without hesitation. You are a brute, but you are also a good man. I saw how you cared for your crew when they lost their mates.”

He snorted. “You’re wrong, lass. I steal and kill and do so gladly. Nothing’s beyond my capabilities, be it murder, or worse.” He didn’t expand upon
worse
. Let her fill in those blanks.

She folded her arms. “I don’t believe you. You’re a different man when you aren’t acting like a circus ringmaster before your big dumb savages who’d kill you if you didn’t demand their loyalty with fear. I’ve been thinking about this. We could work together, you and me. You hand me over only until you get the money from your employer. Then you take me back and we escape with the money. We invest in the technology and become millionaires. Perhaps even billionaires, given time.”

The thought of so much money gave him pause. Phinneas imagined leaving this life behind for good, but the notion terrified him. He hadn’t spent any appreciable time on the Big Blue since he escaped from a Barbados prison the night before he was to hang for smuggling, and he had no interest in returning for the long haul and settling down with a big fortune. “I like me life just fine. Or I did before I met yer troublesome arse, which I plan to unload on that stinking pile of rock just a few days from now. A deal’s a deal, and I already made mine.”

Cecilie sat back in her seat, arms crossed. “So this is how it will be? You leave me to my death after everything we just shared?”

Phinneas tossed up his hands in frustration. He remembered now why courting women had been low on his list of priorities, even when he was living Earthside. Most of them were bloody loons. “Stop talkin’ outta yer arse. I haven’t heard one reason why I should do ye any favors after all yer schemin’. I’m not about to risk everything just because ye pushed yer teats at me and gave me a kiss.”

She grinned. “You gambled and lost,
barbare
. You aren’t going to turn me over to those people on Earth, because you couldn’t bear to part with me. I have stolen the key to your heart.”

Phinneas burst out laughing, his rough guffaws making tinny echoes off the metal walls. He wiped his eyes in amusement and flung the tears across the cabin like tiny jewels “I suppose ye now expect me to compare thee to a summer’s day.”