Arabella of Mars (10 page)

Surreptitiously, Arabella also inspected the captain, who sat beside her, facing forward as she was. He was an odd sort, a foreigner in command of an English ship, with his own distinct accent. In some ways he was even farther from home than she was. She watched his eyes as the boat rowed across the water, rocking with each surge of the oars. Even as the boat tilted with each strong stroke, his eyes stayed level and fixed on the windows of the captain's cabin.

Something of great interest to the captain lay within. Something that consumed his entire attention. But what?

The boat came up alongside
Diana
's bows, rippling with the sun that sparked from the river water. The ship's bowsprit lay nearly horizontal, rather than being steeply raked like the seagoing ships nearby, and her figurehead was another carving of Diana, with her quiver across her shoulder and one arm outstretched, holding a bow and a pair of arrows. Unlike the crude little figures she had seen on some other ships, this figurehead was larger than life and very finely carved. Diana's eyes seemed full of intelligent intensity, like her captain's.

As they approached the ship, the captain seemed to quiver with … no, it could not be fear. Suppressed excitement. But he said nothing, and Arabella did likewise.

“Ahoy the boat!” came a cry from the forecastle.

“
Diana
!” replied the little officer. His voice piped even higher than Arabella's, but it carried across the waves with a power and a degree of gravitas far in excess of the boy's size. It was a type of voice, she thought, that she would do well to emulate.

Two boys scrambled down
Diana
's side to steady the boat and assist Arabella to board; the captain, of course, required no such assistance. As his foot touched the deck, the bosun's pipe sounded a tune and all the men present snapped smartly to attention.

The captain might be a foreigner. His coat might be Mars Company buff, rather than Navy blue. But he was still a ship's captain—he might as well be a god in his little world, once under way—and clearly well respected and obeyed by his men. And this man wanted Arabella for his crew? Again she was overwhelmed by her good fortune.

“Leak test on the envelopes complete, sir,” said another officer, this one a grown man with wide feathery side-whiskers. Arabella would need to learn quickly how to understand the ranks and responsibilities of the ship's officers from the details of their coats. “Two leaks found and patched.”

“Excellent work, Mr. Kerrigan. I will forgo inspection at this time. You may strike the envelopes at your discretion. Is all in readiness for departure at first light?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Very well. Send the call for inflation at eight bells, set the ballast for rising trim, and dismiss the boats … all save one.” He looked at Arabella. “We might need to return this one to shore, if he does not meet qualifications.”

Arabella gulped.

*   *   *

The man the captain had just spoken to turned and bellowed, “Strike the envelopes!” This command was echoed and reechoed down the length of the ship, sending men scurrying up ropes and swarming across the vast balloons that loomed overhead like great lowering clouds. But Captain Singh paid them no mind, instead leading Arabella toward the stern and down a narrow set of stairs.

They emerged in the captain's cabin. The afternoon sun streamed in through the broad, paned window she had observed from outside, illuminating a space that combined luxury with cramped conditions and odd materials. Fine brass fittings gleamed everywhere, including lamps of a peculiar design fixed to the
khoresh
-wood walls, but most of the furniture was woven of wicker or rattan; the ceiling beams were so low that even Arabella had to duck, and the captain bent over nearly double. But clearly he had long experience with the situation, as he somehow contrived to move about the cabin with the same long-legged grace he displayed in the streets outside.

The captain moved to a figure seated near the window, silhouetted against the bright light from outside. Despite the man's large and rather outlandish hat, Arabella had failed to notice him at first, so quiet and still was he. “How do you do?” she said, and slightly raised her cap. But to this greeting the seated figure made no reply.

The captain chuckled slightly. “He does well, Mr. Ashby, quite well indeed.” He reached over and turned up the wick of one of the lamps.

The seated figure was a Turk, dressed in the most extraordinary garb of that nation, complete with a silk turban, flowing sleeves, and a red waistcoat embroidered with metallic thread and spangled with sequins and tiny mirrors. But as he turned to face Arabella, she found his motion even more extraordinary.

The Turk's head tilted, his surprisingly bright green eyes glittering in the lamplight as he silently regarded Arabella. Then his entire upper body rotated as a unit, starting suddenly, turning with a smooth uniform motion, then halting just as abruptly.

He was an automaton!

Arabella approached more closely. Never had she seen an automaton so lifelike. Its face and hands, painted in dark but quite natural-looking skin tones, included eyelashes and lacquered fingernails. Its chest rose and fell in a very convincing and subtle simulacrum of breathing. And its eyes, which she saw now were finely crafted of glass, seemed to be inspecting her carefully. “It is amazing,” she breathed.

The automaton inclined its head in seeming acknowledgement.

Startled, Arabella looked to the captain, and saw that he had one hand on a bank of levers on the side of the desk at which the automaton sat. She chuckled nervously, acknowledging that she had been taken in by the trick.

Bending to inspect the desk, she saw that the automaton was not merely seated at it, but was built into it. The desk, which was mounted on small wheels, enclosed the entire space which would normally hold the user's chair, and the automaton's legs merged into the desk at that point. He seemed to be a sort of centaur—half Turk, half desk. The desk's
khoresh
-wood top was bare and smooth except for a regular grid of small holes, one per inch; all four of its sides were completely covered with brass levers, ivory pointers, and wheels displaying numbers and letters. “May I see inside?”

The captain smiled broadly. “Not one person in ten chooses that as his first question.” He snapped open a pair of catches, then swung one of the complex side panels aside.

Revealed within was a dense array of gears, cams, springs, rods, levers, and wires, many of them ticking and twitching in regular motion. So many parts, so closely packed, that Arabella feared she would never be able to understand what they all did. She leaned in close but kept her hands behind her, and even breathed shallowly through her nose, for fear of damaging the delicate mechanism.

“You see that cam there?” the captain said, pointing at a bit of brass the size of a sovereign, shaped rather like a comma.

“Yes…”

“What is its function?”

Arabella began to protest that she had no way of knowing, but the pressure of the captain's gaze closed her mouth. Instead, she peered closer.

The indicated item was clearly built to pivot around a shaft that pierced its center, the two being joined together by a small set-screw, and a thin finger of brass at the cam's edge would cause it to rotate. No, on second thought, it would not.… The angle was wrong, and the brass finger too fragile. It must be instead that the
shaft
rotated, causing the finger to move as the cam's curved edge turned. Tracing the finger with her eyes, she saw that it attached to a wire which tugged on a cylinder painted with numbers. “When the shaft rotates,” she said, “the cam causes that lever to move, which makes the numbers change.”

“What happens when the shaft turns clockwise ten times?”

Arabella chewed her lip as she stared into the gleaming mechanism. “The number increases by one.”

“And when it turns anticlockwise ten times?”

She opened her mouth to provide the obvious answer—that the number decreased by one—but then looked closer. The numbered cylinder's edge was notched, and a small pawl with a spring would drop into each notch as the cylinder rotated. “Nothing. It only goes one way.”

“Very good.”

“But what is it
for
?”

“That is what is known as an arithmetic accumulator. It is a very useful component in the calculation and display of trigonometric operations.”

Arabella blinked, sitting back on her heels. “No, I mean the whole machine.” She gestured, taking in the half-Turk and the desk, packed with clockwork, at which it sat. “What does it
do
?”

“He is our navigator,” the captain replied, and swung the panel shut over the fascinating, ticking mechanism. “Many airships employ clockwork navigators, but Aadim is the finest, most complex, and most accurate of any in the Company's fleet.” He lay a proprietary hand on the automaton's shoulder. “Aerial navigation is far more complex than its Earthly equivalent on sea or land, having six cardinal directions rather than four. In addition to north, south, east and west, with which you may be familiar”—as he spoke, he pointed up, down, left, and right—“we have sunward and skyward.” For
sunward
he pointed behind himself, to where the sun shone through the window, and for
skyward
he pointed in the opposite direction, toward the cabin door. “Add to that the vagaries of the interplanetary atmosphere, with winds of up to ten thousand miles per hour which may come from any of those six directions with little warning, and the fact that our ports of departure and destination are moving relative to one another, and I hope that you can understand how much of a help a first-rate navigator can be. It is Aadim who is responsible for
Diana
's well-deserved reputation as the fastest ship in the Company's fleet. And, if you will accept the lowly position of captain's boy, I would like to train you in his operation and maintenance.”

Suddenly the intellectual game that Arabella had been playing, herself against the gears and wheels, fell away and she remembered the true stakes in play. Her mouth went dry. “You will take me to Mars? And allow me to leave the ship when we arrive?”

“I will take you to Mars,” the captain replied solemnly. “And, unlike the navy, the Honorable Mars Company does not indenture its men indefinitely. Though I do hope that you will return to the ship voluntarily, as most of my men do.”

Arabella swallowed. “Then I will accept your offer.”

“I am most delighted.” They shook hands, Arabella's pale moist palm enveloped by the captain's long dry dark fingers. “The work is hard, but I believe that you will find it rewarding.”

 

7

DIANA

Leaving the navigator, they returned to the deck. The three huge balloons had vanished from the sky above the ship; instead, acres of billowing Venusian silk lay on the deck, lines of airmen chanting a rhythmic work song as they heaved and folded the fabric into a box the size of a carriage.

“Envelopes struck, sir,” said the same officer who had greeted them as they boarded, touching his forehead with a knuckle. “They'll be stowed shortly. Furnace-men will be by at eight bells, and the harbormaster's cleared us for departure.”

“Very good, Mr. Kerrigan. Ashby here will be joining the crew, so you may dismiss the last boat.” He turned to Arabella. “Unless you have some possessions on shore to retrieve?”

Arabella swallowed. “No, sir.”

“I had thought as much. Welcome aboard, Ashby.” The captain turned to Kerrigan. “He will be serving as captain's boy. Have Faunt show him where to stow his hammock.” Then he turned away.

“Excuse me, sir—”

“Pipe down!” Kerrigan cried, and with a start Arabella shut her mouth. “You'll speak only when spoken to!”

But the captain turned back. “That is the general rule, but as you have come aboard at my particular request I will make an exception”—he held up one long lean finger—“in this one instance. Be aware, though, that I treat all my people equally and fairly, and you will not receive any special dispensation in future. Now what is it that you wished to say?”

Arabella had a thousand questions, but just one leapt to the forefront of her mind. “Why
me
, sir?”

The captain regarded her levelly for a moment. “An excellent question, Ashby. You are untrained, pale, weak, and spindly. However, very few men show the affinity for automata that I have seen in you this day. In this one area, I believe you have exceptional promise. And also, very significantly, Aadim likes you.”

Arabella blinked as the captain turned away. Was he
serious
?

What kind of ship had she just signed on to?

*   *   *

“Pass the word for the captain of the waist,” Kerrigan said to one of the airmen nearby, who immediately scurried off. He then stood with his arms folded behind his pristine uniform coat, inspecting Arabella coolly. Not knowing what else to do, she stood where she was, following the officer with her eyes as he paced around her.

“Eyes front!” he bellowed suddenly. Wide-eyed, she stared straight ahead, reduced to listening as the booted footsteps plodded steadily around behind her.

“Captain's boy, eh?” he said. “Never had one of them before. Perhaps the captain's getting soft in his old age.” By now he had come around in front of her again. “How old might you be?”

She paused, uncertain, but eventually decided that it must be acceptable to answer a direct question. “S-seventeen, sir.”

“Old for a boy. I hope you're up to it.” He crossed his arms on his chest, seeming to look down at her though they were nearly the same height. “You'll be the most junior, lowest-ranked, lowest-paid member of the entire crew. Except and unless you are engaged in some specific task assigned to you by the captain—and there'll be no shirking on that score—you'll do whatever any one senior to you tells you to do. And that's
any
one, even the cook.
Especially
the cook. You'll clean, polish, mend, and paint. You'll fetch and carry. You'll kindle the fire and keep it going. You will do your turn at the pedals, oh yes you will. And if you are very, very fortunate, you may be allowed to haul on a line from time to time. D'ye understand?”