Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) (13 page)

Ivan lunged, hooking his right arm around a girder as he crouched and leaned into the fluttering breach. The wind snatched at him—for an instant he thought he was about to be sucked out into the sky—as he grabbed Max’s wrist and jerked her clenched hand away from the envelope skin. She lifted her head and looked up at him, her black hair swirling everywhere, her teeth chattering, her eyes glimmering white inside her ice-coated goggles.

Ivan lifted the weight of her against the airflow. She released her grip from the sword and grasped his other hand. The muscles in his arms threatened to cramp, so he yanked her up with one big wrench of his body. She came up so quickly it surprised him, and he bear-hugged her. They toppled backward, landing hard on the corridor grating. The wind knocked out of him, his back shooting with pain, Ivan gasped, sucking in deep draughts of air as Max lay sprawled on his chest, shivering violently. Her body felt light on his, much lighter than he would have imagined for her size, as if she were hollow-boned like a bird. He realized that he had never even touched Max before. The two of them had never gotten along. It was not a Martian thing—Ivan did not have a problem with Martians—it was because she was always trying to mess with his engines.

Ivan had saved her. He could feel her Martian heart—the Martian heart located in the left side of the chest, like a human heart—beating against him.

And he was glad that he had saved her.

Max’s body stiffened and jerked as if she had just awoken from a bad dream. She jumped up, her black hair swirling in the air currents.

“On your feet, Chief Mechanic!” Max shouted in a hoarse voice. “You must see to any systems damage.” She braced her boot against the intersection joint and wrenched her sword loose, returning it to her scabbard in one smooth motion.

“Aye!” Ivan had replied, having difficulty as he tried to rise from the catwalk. Max offered her hand; Ivan took it, and he was surprised how much strength she had when she pulled him to his feet.

“Check the hydrogen lines first,” Max shouted, then clambered up to the walkway. “Move!”

A simple “thank you” would have been nice, Ivan thought.

Half an hour later, out on the windblown exterior of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
, Ivan’s back still hurt. The airship was running at less than maximum speed, but sixty knots still packed a wallop. He skimmed down his safety line as he arrived at the monstrous, forty-foot-high tear in the envelope skin.

Max was there, along with three teams of skinners that included Rudyard, Amanda, and Marian Boyd, who had bloodstained bandages jutting out of her flying helmet. There were also four of Pluteus’s Ballblasters, well tethered and perched at the perimeter with their muskets ready, eyes peeled and turned toward the sky, even though it was unheard of to run into a second hunting pair of tanglers in one day.

Max, Marian, and the skinners sewed emergency patches, battling to keep the wind from whipping loose fabric into their faces, a real hazard with jagged, doped edges and nine-inch needles in the mix. Ivan slid into position to assist Marian. He was anxious to do something. He wanted to be busy. He did not want to think about Buckle being dead.

Max waved Ivan off. “What are you doing, Ivan?” she shouted. “There is no need for a mechanic out here! Get back inside!”

“A simple ‘thank you’ would have been nice,” Ivan grumbled.

SECOND-IN-COMMAND

S
ABRINA
S
ERAFIM GRIPPED THE RUDDER
wheel, the solid swing of its smooth brass handles reassuring against her hands. She had taken the rudder wheel from De Quincey, needing an anchor for her soul. Half an hour earlier, she had seen Buckle fall. She shuddered, not wanting to remember. The gondola cockpit was silent, and the winding and hissing of the instruments on her bowler hat seemed unusually loud.

“We shall maintain all ahead standard until repairs are completed,” she told Welly, who was now seated in the chief navigator’s chair. “Adjust for drift. Keep us on course.”

“Aye, Captain,” Welly replied, his voice quavering.

Captain. Sabrina took a deep breath. Romulus Buckle was gone. Her captain. Her brother. Her friend. It was impossible. She had always been certain that Buckle was bulletproof, untouchable. What an awful way to die: cut to shreds by a tangler as he plummeted to earth. It wasn’t the way he should go. It was improper.

Kellie stood at Sabrina’s feet, tail tucked between her legs, panting, foam coating her tongue after she had run miles of airship passageways and catwalks in a vain search for her master. Sabrina had tried to pick her up, but she squirmed away, inconsolable. Perhaps Kellie would have preferred to jump overboard with Buckle to join him in his end.

The dog’s quivering misery made Sabrina feel even worse. Here she was—the acting captain—and her insides were knotted with anger at the unfairness of the world.

At least the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
was holding its course more easily now. Sabrina had had to compensate for the starboard-side drag less and less. This was good. With three skinner teams on the repairs, the job should almost be done—as long as no more beasties showed up—and she could get the airship back under full power again. She was in command now; standing at the helm where Buckle should have been, she felt alone.

“The sea breeze is stiffening from the west with the onset of evening, Captain,” Welly reported. “Recalculating drift corrections.”

“Aye,” Sabrina replied.

Other than the sounds of her commands and Welly’s acknowledgments, the gondola had been running silent since the tangler attack. Welly’s pencil scratched loudly now and again as he worked his navigational math, his usual smile missing from his face as he leaned over his station. Poor Welly. He bore as much affection for Buckle as anyone. Well, Welly, you’d better get used to the chief navigator’s chair, Sabrina thought, because it is yours now. And get ready to be nitpicked, because no navigator ever wants to have a captain who used to be a navigator, because they’re always leaning over your shoulder, telling you how you’re doing everything wrong. She smiled a little, surprising herself.

Sabrina was always a little hard on Welly because of that, because of the annoying twinge of embarrassment she felt at having her pimply apprentice, who was a full three years her junior, wearing her hat and telling everyone who would listen of his adolescent devotion to her. She would upon occasion refer
to him as “the kid,” even though she knew he hated it. But deep underneath, Sabrina quite liked Welly (in a big-sister sort of way), with his earnestness and honesty, and she often caught a glimpse of the handsome man who was struggling to grow up and out of the gawky, awkward “kid.”

Sabrina was no stranger to loss. There would be no wet-eyed sadness from the acting captain. Not with a crew devastated by Buckle’s death at exactly the moment when they needed him the most, mere hours before the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
was to plunge down into the poison mists of the Founders’ city, charging headlong into the unknown, into a fortified bastion where they would be outnumbered and outgunned.

Buckle’s loss was painful, but it changed nothing. Balthazar Crankshaft had to be saved. Even if the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
and her entire crew perished in the effort, no one doubted that the sacrifice would be worth it. Don’t miss Buckle too much just yet, Serafim, she mused to herself, for you may be joining him soon.

And for just one instant, Sabrina allowed herself a twinge of hope, the tiny comfort that somehow, somewhere, Romulus Buckle might still be alive. He had escaped the clutches of certain death before. But as the little hope grew, it only further illuminated the reality of Buckle’s death. She buried it.

Pluteus arrived in the gondola, his boots clomping down the iron stairwell and across the gondola’s teakwood deck. He stank of sweat and gunpowder, so Sabrina could smell him coming as well as hear him. “I’ve been informed that we are currently drifting along at half speed, Serafim,” he said, frustration coloring his voice. “How long is that going to last?”

Sabrina winced. She did not want Pluteus on the bridge. She adored him, but he was overbearing. “Not much longer, I’d
wager, Pluteus. But our repair is a big job. We were ripped wide open at the kidney.”

Pluteus placed his hand on Sabrina’s shoulder; it was heavy, cloaked in a long leather glove with an armored plate stitched into the forearm. His hand had always felt reassuring. Pluteus was a big, gruff infantryman, but as Balthazar Crankshaft’s cousin, he was like an uncle to most of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
’s crew. “We are all sorry about Romulus, my dear,” Pluteus said. “I know how close-knit you and he were.”

Sabrina patted Pluteus’s hand and tried to smile. “Thanks, Pluteus. But right now all I want to do is get Balthazar back. We owe it to Romulus to pull this one off.”

Pluteus nodded and took a long, deep breath. “He won’t be the only Crankshafter to die today, I am afraid,” he said.

“Think lucky. Buckle always thought lucky,” Sabrina said.

Pluteus grinned. “All right, well, my troopers are getting geared up,” he said as he turned to leave. “Give me a signal five minutes prior to disembarkation, please.”

“Pluteus, I, wait…” Sabrina blurted.

Pluteus stepped back. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

Sabrina’s nerves twisted inside her stomach. She hadn’t wanted to have this conversation with Pluteus. But now she had no choice. “I am going with you.”

“Going with me
where
?” Pluteus asked.

“Down there. Into the mustard.”

Pluteus blinked. Then he looked angry. “No. No you are not, Serafim,” he replied.

Sabrina stepped away from the helm, motioning for De Quincey to return to his station at the wheel. “I was already slated to accompany Romulus. I can help you,” Sabrina whispered, glancing at Welly, De Quincey, and the others, bodies
only a few feet away at every hand, all able to hear every word they were saying.

Pluteus sighed through his nose. “You are the acting captain now, Serafim. Your place is here.”

“Pluteus, I…I am the only one who knows the way into the city.”

She saw surprise flash in Pluteus’s eyes. “You? You are the one? And how in blue blazes do you know that?”

“It is not important.”

“Is not important? Answer me, Serafim,” Pluteus demanded, stepping forward to face her directly. “How do you of all people have firsthand knowledge of secret passageways in and out of the City of the Founders?”

“Balthazar knows how.”

Pluteus leaned very close. “I need to know
how
.”

Sabrina had always looked up to Pluteus, even emulated him, and now she had just seen the shock in his eyes shift to angry suspicion. It angered her. “Not here, General Brassballs, and not now.”

Shock registered in Pluteus’s expression. He looked as if he wanted to slap her. “Balthazar may allow you the privilege of hiding your history, and so be it. But when it affects the here and now, I demand to know the facts.”

“Step aside, General,” Sabrina said, encouraged by the baritone authority brimming in her voice. “With all due respect—
I
am the captain here.”

For a moment Pluteus did not move, his eyes hard and mean, the veins in his neck popping. Then, like a lion thwarted, he lurched aside.

Max’s voice rang from the chattertube hood. “Chief Engineer to the bridge,” she said.

Sabrina leaned in to her chattertube mouthpiece. “Aye, Chief Engineer.”

“Emergency skin repairs are complete, Captain,” Max announced. “But no more than all ahead standard recommended.”

“Aye, Max. Good work,” Sabrina said. She stiffened up, feeling a surge of energy. Her spine suddenly felt as it if it were injected with iron. She grabbed the engine telegraph lever and cocked it forward to all ahead full, sounding the bell. “All ahead full!” she shouted into the engine-room chattertube.

“All ahead full!” an engineer answered. The second dial on the engine-room telegraph swung to match the first, and the bell rang again.

“Your chief engineer recommended no more than standard, Captain Serafim,” Pluteus commented dryly, glowering.

“I am going to make up your lost time for you, General,” Sabrina answered, feeling the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
surge under her feet, the propellers winding up to a thundering hum. Kellie raised her head as she always did when the ship accelerated…but dropped it and fell to whimpering.

Sabrina nudged the rudder wheel, and as the weak light of the afternoon sun drifted its shadows across the cockpit, the glass nose of the gondola swung down toward the yellow miasma below, toward the Los Angeles basin, fogged with poison, and toward the fabled, wicked city within it.