1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) (20 page)

Tesla pointed to the speaker knob.

“Oh.” Billy flipped the knob upward. “Jack! We did it!”

“Good! Now maybe I can have a goddamned drink! Cutting power!”

“Go ahead. You’ve earned it!” Billy replied.
And very soon, you’re going to really need it
, he thought.

But when the hum of the Tesla coil ceased abruptly, there was a moment of weightlessness, followed by a teeth-rattling
thump!

“Oh,” Billy said, recovering. “I suppose we’ve landed now.”

[ 59 ]

Edward Teach awoke when he thumped onto the floor of his
Arcadia
stateroom.

“Good God. What in the name of Slim is happening?”

There was no one there to answer.

He tried gaining his feet and found himself floating to the ceiling, from which he rebounded with a thump that sent a shiver through his body. He found himself slowly floating back down to the floor.

Teach emerged from his stateroom beside the ladder, and instead of checking further around the stateroom ring, tried to climb the ladder. Instead he went sailing through the hatchway and across the main chamber of the ship. He yelled as he flew, to no avail.

At the last second before he struck the farther wall, Edward Teach saw what could have been none other than an apparition, disappearing aft into the cargo hold. For an instant the ghastly figure turned and regarded him, then went into the darkness beyond. In the split second before he impacted the wood paneling with his head, he could have sworn it was the ghost of Will Quinlan, dripping with blood. Quinlan’s face was distorted, however, with one side of his mouth pulled down while the other was pulled up into a twisted grin.

Teach thumped into the wall face first and the flames of a thousand candles flared and winked out in his head.

[ 60 ]

Denys Jay-Patten was the first into Jonathan Conklin’s stateroom. He expected to find the doctor resting peacefully. What he found instead was the grim repetition of what he had seen in Abigail Ross’s stateroom.

Two Hats entered the doorway behind him, took one look and swallowed hard.

A faceless head rested on the floor in the center of the room. The face did, however, hold Conklin’s glasses. The various other parts of the body were strewn about the place. Blood was everywhere.

“We know it wasn’t Conklin,” Denys said.

“Come,” Two Hats said. “This place tomb. Breathing people should not be here.”

Denys nodded, turned and followed Two Hats back outside. “Yes. Let’s close the door to this place. We must not allow entry. I think Ekka should see this. Maybe she can somehow make sense of it.”

“We have special problem,” Two Hats said quietly.

“Yes. We have an insane killer in our midst.”

[ 61 ]

Billy found Edward Teach’s form resting on one of the platforms. The man was still breathing. He shook Teach and the man’s eyes fluttered open. He had a gash in his forehead that would need treating, but for the moment there were bigger fish to fry.

“Hey!” Billy said. “Teach!”

“Huh?”

“You all right?”

Teach groaned. “My head hurts. Something awful.”

“You’ve been injured. Come on. Let’s get you on your feet.”

Billy lifted Teach as though he were a small sack of grain. “I’m really strong on the moon. I like it here.”

“I saw somebody,” Teach said.

“Who?” Billy asked. “Who did you see?”

“One of my pirates. A fellow named Will Quinlan. But there’s no way he could have stowed away for two weeks without us knowing about it.”

“Quinlan, you say?”

“Yeah.”

“I suppose we’ll know him when we see him because he’s not one of us. Tell me, was he a crazy murdering son of a bitch?”

Teach shook his head. “No. Quinlan was a good boy. One of the best. Why? Why do you ask?”

“Because someone murdered Abigail Ross. I was on my way to tell Jack when I found you.”

“Good God. I don’t envy you your task.”

“Want to go with me?” Billy asked.

“I’ve nothing better to do.”

“Come on, then. Maybe we can learn to walk in this insane gravity along the way.”

[ 62 ]

Two Hats and John Koothrappally stood outside Abigail Ross’s stateroom door. They waited for Jack Ross to come. Billy would be giving the man the bad news about now, and they suspected Ross would go instantly berserk, and any man with a powerful robotic right arm should not be permitted to do so. Each person on board the
Arcadia
had seen how the man regarded and treated his wife. He had loved her deeply, as much as any man could love a woman, and in particular, as much any man would
worship
a woman who was no longer capable of returning the sentiment. Very shortly there would be hell to pay.

[ 63 ]

In the cargo hold the giant robot came to life when the presence returned. Its lone red eye tracked to him, scanned him, then made a complex set of internal calculations. The robot waited.

The presence stood before the robot and removed its face.

The internal clicking from the robot rose to a fever pitch.

It stated one word. “Recognition.”

[ 64 ]

Judah Merkam came to with the faces of Ekka Gagarin, Nikola Tesla and Denys Jay-Patten looking down at him.

“What? What?” he asked, attempting to rise but was held back by some invisible force.

“You are strapped to your bunk,” Tesla stated. “This was done for the purposes of protection.”

“Where are we?” Merkam asked. “We’re not under spin.”

“We’re on the moon,” Ekka said. “We made it.”

Merkam digested the news slowly. “Did I...faint?”

“We don’t know,” Ekka said. “I found you on the floor. You were talking, but not making any sense. How do you feel?”

“I...my head feels as though I am in a fog. But the fog is lifting, I think.”

Ekka felt his forehead, then withdrew her hand. “You have no fever.”

“Can you untie me?” Merkam asked.

“Let’s wait a bit on that, old chap,” Tesla said. “We don’t know when or if you will return to a...fugue state.”

Merkam nodded slowly.

Ekka brought her face close to Merkam’s. “Tell us, Jude. Whom do you consider a...”

“A what?”

“A...‘bitch’?” she said, just above a whisper.

“What?”

“It is important, Jude,” she said. “You were talking about ‘killing the bitch’ and it being ‘a mercy’. Do you remember anything of it?”

“Certainly not. Why would my ramblings when I was not myself be important?”

Ekka stood, and as she did, she rose several inches. Tesla put out a hand to keep her feet to the deck and found himself drifting upward. Jay-Patten put his hands on both their shoulders and held them to the deck.

“The moon’s gravity,” Merkam said. “It will take some getting used to. Are we near the alien compound?”

“How should I know?” Ekka stated.

“We are at the coordinates you laid out,” Tesla said. “I see no evidence of any alien structures through any of the windows. But, then again, we haven’t had time to look.”

“Good. They are on the other side of the ridge from us. That is why I chose this spot and carefully selected our approach. We were not to be seen. Did Billy pilot us in?”

“He did,” Ekka said. “He’s a good pilot.”

“I thought he would be,” Merkam replied. He looked around. “Where is he?”

“He’s giving Jack Ross some bad news,” Tesla stated.

“What bad news?”

Ekka and Tesla exchanged glances.

“Out with it,” Merkam said. “I must know. Now.”

Ekka bent forward again. “Abigail Ross has been brutally murdered.”

None of the three expected to see the abrupt change in Merkam’s demeanor. His face contorted and his lips quivered. The tears began.

“I loved her,” Merkam said. “I never stopped loving her.”

[ 65 ]

“Jack!” Billy shouted.

But the man was already in motion to the engine room door.

“Let him go, Billy,” Teach said. “He could kill one of us with that arm of his. He’ll go crazy either quickly or slowly.”

“I’m wondering,” Billy said. “Why we came here in the first place.”

“I’ve been wondering the same myself. If Merkam wakes up, I think someone is going to need to have a long talk with him about what is expected of us. I don’t relish leaving this craft, but if it’s necessary, I’d say we’d better be about our business and get ourselves home, and soon.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Billy agreed.

“We’d better follow Jack. Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“Yeah.”

The two men slowly made their way out of the engine room and into the hulking, quiet emptiness of the
Arcadia
.

[ 66 ]

Jonathan Conklin put out dishes, food crumbs and dirty glasses. Once he completed setting up the cargo hold to suit his purposes, he strapped two of the oxygen cylinders onto the back of one of the diving suits and checked the hoses. He slid into the suit, placed the bulky helmet over his head and stepped to the cargo hatch doorway. He lifted the portmanteau he had taken from Judah Merkam’s stateroom. Inside it was a detailed map of the lunar surface, including the position of the alien base.

He turned and regarded the robot. After a moment the red light on its brow faded. The machine had switched itself off.

Conklin checked the seals on his suit one last time, then pulled the latch on the first cargo hold doorway. When it opened, he stepped through and closed it. The last doorway stood before him.

He thumbed a switch on the wall and all of the air in the chamber
whooshed
out the slowly opening final doorway.

The stark beauty of the lunar landscape greeted the doctor, the god...the madman.

“Ahh,” he breathed. “So much,” he whispered to himself. “So much to be done.”

He stepped down the short walkway onto the powdery surface below, and into the arms of his destiny.

PART V:

NATIVE

[ 67 ]

Billy and Teach only took a few steps when Billy stopped. “Hold up. Look there.” He pointed down at a tiny sliver of white cloth that appeared to be dappled with a fine red spray. They knelt and Billy said, “That’s blood, and I think the cloth is part of Abby’s blouse.” He looked closer and saw the last bit of cloth was caught under the wall paneling. “You see this, Teach?”

“Aye, lad. There be a hollow on the other side. Quinlan’s hide, methinks.”

They checked the wall with fingertips and kept their eyes close to the wood until Teach said, “It be here, lad.”

A hidden lever opened at Teach’s hand and both men entered with weapons drawn. Billy scrunched his nose and said, “That is god-awful.”

Teach pulled his bandanna over his nose, “Hell’s own, Billy. If I air me paunch, don’t think less of me.”

They made quick work of the space and knew Quinlan was nowhere in it. Teach said, “We know where he’s not, so let’s find Quinlan and be puttin’ an end to him.” The men exited and started forward, both glancing out a porthole. They stopped together as if on command. Sixty feet from the
Arcadia
and directly in line with the
Arcadia
’s cargo and entry hatches was a jet black, house-sized ridge of stone. It was shaped like Gibralter on the end closest to the ship, with the remainder sloping away in a gradual decline to the powdery surface. The shape reminded Billy of a loading ramp. Footprints, clear and distinct led from the
Arcadia
to the rock, where the footprints showed that whoever it was had turned to look at the ship, then continued walking by the rock and across the lunar dust toward the low ridge in the distance.

Billy said, “Just walking away like he’s on a summer stroll. Your Quinlan is one icy-souled fellow.”

“And that puzzles me, Billy, for he was no scalawag, just a boy eager to learn the way of ships.” He rubbed the corner of his mouth with a thumb, “All the same, when we meet, I plan to knock him into a cocked hat before the first hello.”

Billy looked out the porthole again and said, “Do you see that over yonder, along the edge of that big hole?”