Imprudence (21 page)

The mooring obelisks were carved of exotic stone, black basalt, white marble, red rhyolite, and something green Rue couldn't identify. They were ringed and notched at the top with posts, serving dirigibles, hot air balloons, ornithopters, and other, weirder sky boats. Some were used by only one airship, while others were surrounded by clusters of patchwork and striped balloons, like enormous bouquets of fat painted hyacinth bulbs.

Lady Maccon pointed at a cluster. “Nomadic desert tribes. Twenty years ago they were called Drifters. They may still use the name. Cousins to the Bedouin, they took to the skies long ago.”

“They're beautiful. For the first time, my darling
Custard
actually fits right in.” Rue was delighted.
The
Spotted Custard
's cheerful red balloon with its big black spots was in good company in Cairo. In London, airships tended to be more sombre in appearance.

Percy, at the helm on the opposite end of the ship, had to yell to get Rue's attention. “How do we know where to tether?”

At which juncture, he came under attack from a native bird.

“Pigeon!” Rue ran from the forecastle, dashed across the main deck, hoisted her skirts, and leapt up to the quarterdeck, parasol swinging. “Get it!” Rue had a horror of pigeons.

But this particular bird behaved unlike any she had ever met. It landed without fear right next to Percy in the navigation pit. At rest, it was clearly not a pigeon at all, nor was it made of flesh. It was made of metal. And mechanical. And utterly forbidden.

Everyone on board stared at it with mouths agape.

Quesnel followed Rue, although without parasol brandishment, coming to stand next to her, looking up at the creature on their poop deck.

His face was white in shock. “Is that a…
mechanimal
?”

Lady Maccon came after.

“I thought they were prescribed.” Primrose joined them.

“They are!” Rue and her mother spoke at the same time.

Percy was unperturbed. He looked at the bird as if a tropical bug or small child had approached him, which is to say, without much interest or intent to engage.

“Percival,” said Lady Maccon in a low frightened voice, “come away from there this instant. Those things are explosive.”

Rue panicked. “Get it off my ship!”

Prim clutched her hands together. “Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Didn't they destroy most of London half a century ago?”

Lady Maccon remained calm. “That's the rumour.”

Quesnel's face stayed incandescently enthralled. “To think, in my lifetime! I got to see a mechanimal, in person.”

The metal bird cocked its head at them and let out a peep noise. It burst the ear socket it was so high.

Percy objected. “Ouch. Stop that. What do you want?”

The mechanimal twitched and peeped again.

Then it threw its little beak back and its whole head rolled inside out and converted to a kind of morning glory flower shape, like a hearing trumpet. A human voice emerged, as if from one of those newfangled gramophones.

It spoke a short stream in some foreign tongue, then in French, and finally in English. “Unregistered airships report to the Ministries of Public Works Plus War, at the Customs and Tariff Obelisk.” It then proceed on to various other languages before converting its head back to that of a bird and taking flight, returning the way it had come.

“Nasty piece of work.” Rue felt it was one step removed from a pigeon.

Percy began twiddling dials. “Seemed pleasant enough. Now we know what to do.”

“Oh yes? And where is this Ministries of Public Works Plus War?”

Primrose brightened. “Let me consult my
Baedeker's
.” She trotted off to her room to retrieve the obligatory red leather travel guide.

Rue hated to do it but she shouted after her friend, “Prim, you might rouse Miss Sekhmet while you're there.”

Primrose paused, turned, and gave Rue a nasty look.

Rue tried to look contrite. “We might need her interpretive skills.”

Percy objected on principal. “I've studied several of the local dialects.”

“Percy, my duck,” said Rue, “there is a vast different between speaking and studying.”

Percy grumbled, as did Prim continuing belowdecks.

Lady Maccon jumped on the matter of linguistic challenges. “You should hire a dragoman, infant. Although, hard to do so before we've visited the tariff office. As I recall, I had no little difficulty in Alexandria at customs when we visited last.” She turned to Quesnel. “They objected to your mother's hatbox in particular.”

“Oh?” The Frenchman encouraged all mentions of his mother's past. Rue had the feeling Madame Lefoux could be maddeningly close-mouthed as a rule.

“You don't happen to have any suspicious hatboxes with you, do you, young man? Could prove difficult.”

Quesnel went deadpan. “Lady Maccon, I assure you all my hatboxes are perfectly respectable and contain hats, nothing more.”

“That's what Genevieve always said.” Lady Maccon was not reassured.

Primrose returned with her
Baedeker's
.

A convenient little map of the city showed that there was a Ministry of Public Works Plus War in the south-western part of the city. They made their way in that direction, eventually spotting what must surely be the Customs and Tariff Obelisk. It jutted up from the centre of a park in between the Ministry of Public Works Plus War and the British Consulate General. It was a particularly tall spire of black basalt. It must be the right obelisk because all manner of transcontinental airships were clustered around it. Each de-puffed and moored in, but not for long.

The
Spotted Custard
joined the general hubbub of air traffic around the spire. A severe-looking military dirigible of the kind favoured by Queen Victoria's colonial flotillahs appeared next to them, making the crew nervous. Likely its intent.

However, once they'd reached the obelisk and cast out their own mooring rope, the military craft drifted off to loom at some other newcomer.

A strange feeling of numbness overcame Rue's whole body as they sunk further down. It was like being submerged in a bathtub, only it wasn't wet. It felt a little like the moment when touching her mother cancelled out all metanatural abilities.

Rue sidled over to said mother. “Do you feel that?” She kept her tone low; no need for anyone else to be alarmed.

The crew was busy looking as respectable and efficient as possible. Not because
The
Spotted Custard
was engaged in any nefarious activities – she was registered as a pleasure vessel with all the major regulatory bodies of the empire – but because the moment one entered the sphere of any bureaucratic body, one felt the need to put on a
jolly good show
. Nervous propriety was the natural consequence of proximity to an overabundance of paperwork. Even Quesnel popped off belowdecks to check with Aggie regarding the condition of the kettles and the general cleanliness of the boiler room.

Lady Maccon looked at her daughter. “The repulsion, you mean? Yes, a little. It's not as strong as it would be with a preternatural skeleton nearby.”

“Mother, don't be morbid. No, I'm getting a numbing sensation.”

“I suppose it would be different for you. What exactly does it feel like? I mean, what would you compare the sensation to?”

“You.”

Lady Maccon nodded. “Makes sense. It
is
me, in a grotesque way. Or, to be precise, a lot of dead mes. It's not as strong as it used to be. But I suppose they haven't been renewing or expanding it. One assumes over time, with exposure, even mummies decompose.”

“Really, Mother, must you?”

Lady Maccon patted Rue in a condescending way. “Don't worry, dear. It's no longer important.”

Rue fished about in her memories of family lore. “This is the God-Breaker Plague, isn't it?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, then, I guess we can wake up Paw whenever you like, full moon notwithstanding.”

“Oh, of course!” Lady Maccon slapped her head with her hand. “How silly of me.” She immediately snapped her parasol shut and bustled below.

Rue didn't stop her. It would be much easier to have an awake Lord Maccon when the customs officials boarded. Bureaucrats were likely to frown upon aristocratic Scotsmen preserved naked in tanks.

The three official representatives of the Ministry of Public Works, War, Customs, and Tariffs were exactly what one might expect. They were stiff and humourless. They sported, in varying degrees of vegetation, decidedly impressive moustaches. They kept a cottage, of sorts, at the top of the black obelisk. It was made of mud brick with slit openings instead of windows so that it looked quite grumpy. From under the cottage extended several articulated walkways. As soon as they were within reach, one of these clamped down to the railing of
The
Spotted Custard
with the ease of frequent repetition. There were eight of these ramps, making the custom-house look like nothing so much as a brown spider waving long metal legs about and latching onto airships.

The wait was long enough for Rue and Primrose to don their frilliest dresses and most supercilious personas. Innocent young ladies with empty heads left officials feeling lost. There was something about the very rich, very young, very fashionable Englishwoman on a pleasure jaunt that defeated even the most hardened bureaucracy.

The man in charge was an agent of Queen Victoria by his dress if not his language, kitted out in something approaching a soldier's uniform – although not quite the correct colours. The other two wore long white robes and funny little hats that Prim's travel guide reliably informed her meant they were of Turkish extraction. The guide was very clear on how dress indicated social standing in Egyptian society. Primrose believed it wholeheartedly; Baedeker never led her astray. Rue was suspicious. What, for example, would Baedeker say of Primrose given only a few lines of dialogue and an encounter with her fluffiest hat?

While the customs officers conducted their investigation, Rue and Prim trailed behind, chattering faster than a kettle at full boil about the most inconsequential things in a way that was not exactly distracting but certainly maddening and non-threatening. They tossed scones happily at one another in the galley, cooed over the crochet coverlets in the guest rooms, and giggled over a book in the library.

When Lord Maccon appeared, coming up the spiral staircase from engineering, entirely unclothed and covered in faintly orange slime, the customs officers were so worn down they only stopped and stared, mouths agape.

He examined the two Turkish officials with equal interest. “We're in Egypt, then?”

Lady Maccon came up behind her husband and dipped under one of his arms, supporting part of his weight with her shoulders. She was unperturbed by slime on her dress. No wonder Uncle Rabiffano despaired of her.

“Wife?”

“Yes, husband?”

“May I wear one of those relaxing-looking men's dresses now that we'll be taking up permanent residence here?”

Lady Maccon coughed. “Come away, dear. Let us allow the gentlemen to continue their work. Do pardon my husband, good sirs. He has been enduring a protracted illness and has only just left his” – she paused, grappling – “bath.”

The officials nodded gravely. Presumably, they understood the importance of baths.

Lady Maccon steered her enormous spouse, the only man who made her look delicate, down the hallway towards the guest quarters. No doubt an officer would check their papers later.

“Well, may I?” Rue heard Paw press the issue with Mother.

“You'll look utterly ridiculous.”

“But I'll be
comfortable
. It's almost kilt-like.”

Rue wanted to run after her resurrected father and leap into his arms. He looked better than he had in ages, even with the slime. It was a joy to see him safely out of that horrid tank. But she was captain of an airship and had a role to play, particularly with foreign officials. She and Prim were required for featherbrained chatter. Familial reunions could wait.

Primrose had all the
Custard
's paperwork in order. Although, she had passed it on to the head steward because they'd agreed record-keeping might be better coming from a soberly dressed man.

The officials checked the numbers against the roster and counted up decklings, sooties, deckhands, greasers, and household staff. They clearly weren't interested in laymen, for they quickly moved on to the officer's papers. They insisted on interviewing every one of
The
Spotted Custard
's passengers as well. Lord and Lady Maccon and Tasherit Sekhmet came under considerable scrutiny.

However, of the entire company, only that last proved to be of concern.

The chief officer closeted himself with the werelioness for a good half hour. The fluted notes of an animated discussion emanated from Tasherit's cabin. It being in a foreign tongue, Rue and Prim couldn't even eavesdrop.