Abominations Read online

  “Engineering on this boat is all the way forward. Which is called the bow, just like on a water boat. Machine shop port, galley starboard. I'll walk you in.”

  Engineering was oddly quiet. Gwen had expected large machines clanking and coal being shoveled, even though she knew, intellectually, that this thing wasn't steam powered. All the brass and wood made this whole world feel like it should be. Instead of working with giant wrenches, Gloria sat at a large workbench with a complicated device in front of her. It looked like something from a child's toy rocket, but made for a huge kid, it was about the size of a large garbage can and roughly the same shape.

  “Curly, good of you to join me and...” She pulled out a pocket watch, flipped the cover and looked at it closely. “I'll be damned, not even late!”

  The beefy woman turned to the thin redheaded man.

  “So, how'd she do Smitty?”

  The man nodded and gave a slight smile.

  “Pretty well. Good attention to detail, even on a boring task, didn't ask why it had to be done, even though it already looked clean. After you set her a time limit, she worked fast and didn't stop, which we all know takes some doing when you're green. Seems to be paying attention and doesn't natter on endlessly.” He shrugged then. “That's all I've had time for, except the stuff earlier, where she saved my ass, so she's doing good in my book. I saw we keep her and use Darnell as the new bow decoration. We can dress him up as a bird with a little tar and some feathers.”

  The woman kept working on what she had in front of her while she spoke.

  “Heh, yeah, your ass and mine too. Alright, Curly, next test then, can you charge a crystal at all?”

  Gwen nodded, hoping that charging the little crystals at home the day before would be enough practice to do whatever the older woman had in mind.

  “Right. Let's see what you can do then, help me get this out...” She pointed, showing that she wanted Gwen on the other side of the bench, used a screwdriver to pull open a plate on the side that ran about sixty percent of the length of the larger tube. Inside sat a large crystal pack, about the size of both her legs put together and nearly as long. They pried it out of the housing and set it on the work surface next to a big silver cylinder.

  “This is a maneuvering thruster. Normally I'd just send the crystal out to be charged, like we do with most of them, but this conked on us just after we got out of the hangar. When we're in the air, we can do it without pissing off the Chargers Union. We may or may not need it for air docking, depending on what the Merriment has left. Given they're a Terrace Line craft, I'd say we can't count on much. Anyway, the Westmorland Captain said you could do this, and while I could, I'm needed to go over the rest of this piece while we have it out, to make sure it didn't clog the water valve or outer vent system. That can happen if the crystal goes while under heavy load, even though it shouldn't be the case here. Smart people always check anyway. Have a seat and get to work. Let me know if you can't do it within three hours.”

  A high bench, big enough for two people to sit on without touching, gave her someplace to sit while she worked on the crystal. She focused on the metal plate on the end, trying to push as hard as possible, even though she didn't know if that would make this go any faster or not. Every few seconds her attention would try to waiver, but she knew enough not to let that fluster her and to just keep coming back to what she tried to do. Soon she lost track of what the other woman did next to her. She occasionally noticed the odd thump or bump coming from that direction, but it didn't distract her. It reminded her briefly of when she was a kid and her mom would try to talk to her while she read a book or watched a television show, but nothing would get through until she started yelling.

  After a while, it felt like twenty minutes or so, but she didn't know for sure, the crystal started pushing back. She tested it again, to make sure that it really had been filled. Smithy's words about double checking on the ship made sense to her. She didn't want to mess something up and have that turn out to be a fatal mistake or something.

  “Done,” Gwen said, her voice sounding flat.

  Gloria glanced over at her, a skeptical look on her face.

  “Really?” Instead of trying to move the heavy crystal again, she gestured for Gwen to scoot off the bench and maneuvered herself into position so that she could check it for herself. Gwen worried for a second that she'd messed up or something, since the other woman grunted slightly at what she found.

  “Damn. No wonder the Admiral wants you shown propulsions. Fine, we'll start with what's in front of us.” Without waiting for a reaction, Gloria pointed to the maneuvering thruster and started to explain.

  “This is a steam rocket, as you probably already know, unless you went to school in another world or something. The crystal you just charged provides energy, a radiative turns it to heat, at this point here,” a big finger pointed at a small silver tube of metal about a half inch in diameter. “Inside this is a copper mesh that also acts as a heat transfer, water hits it and explodes, the steam gets carried along, through here and down this path to the release.” This all got indicated with a tap to each area.

  She went on to explain how each piece worked, then quizzed Gwen on what she'd just said while she put the whole thing back together. After they got the heavy crystal back into place, Gloria called four of the other men in to help put the thruster where it belonged.

  Instead of anything fancy or magical, the whole unit just got placed in a hole in the wall, what looked like a cupboard to Gwen, then small handles were turned which apparently moved the large unit outside the hull, deploying it for use.

  “Curly, you're with me. Smitty, check the upper decks for wear. Groundling, you're in charge of the others, ten minute breaks then back to work. I'll be in the motivator compartment if you need me.”

  The motivator, which turned out to be a giant stone cube that wanted to move forward when enough magical energy got applied to it, had a tiny crawlspace underneath it, filled with cables and heavy wooden beams.

  “We keep a pretty tight ship here, but sometimes you find rats and mice, bugs and whatnot down here. If you see anything, try to kill it and clean it out. Otherwise things will try to chew the cables. Let's go then.”

  Gloria got on all fours and led the way into the dark space below the heavy block. A small light, a glow lamp, turned on each time they got within a few feet of it, they seemed to be stationed on every support beam, one on each side.

  Gwen didn't notice any rats or mice. She managed to kill a couple of bugs, which got Gloria's attention.

  “Not squeamish then? Good. Probably surprise you who was and about what. I saw a lot of that in the Air-Navy. A man that would stand four fellows off in a bar fight without more than a smile, screaming like a little girl at a spider and shit like that. Me, I figure, it don't kill you, it's not worth being afraid of.”

  The Engineer pointed out the main flow cables, thick affairs that looked about the size of a garden hose in diameter, and the connection points, which turned out to be large copper plates fitted snugly to the big stone, a plain gray rock, cut to fit the space perfectly. That or the space had been built around it. Either would work.

  Smaller cables along the walls turned out to be the control cables, which told the thrusters to fire or not, and water cables, hoses she figured, which fed the thrusters from a large tank above them, right under the balloon itself. The power crystal, Gloria told her while pointing at the thick cables, sat on the third deck, above, centered in the middle, but outside, so that they could be easily changed. One crystal was good for about ten thousand air miles on a ship like the Peregrine.

  Since everything looked good, they both crawled back to the small hatch they'd come in by, Gwen's knees starting to hurt a bit by the time they got there. It took a bit of will, but she didn't rub at them when she stood. A sudden twinge in her chest did cause her to rub at that for a bit. Gloria noticed and smirked a bit.

  “Most people complain about their back or kn
ees after that, especially the first time. It never really gets easier, but you learn not to say anything. Never seen anyone rub their tits after though. Injury?” The question had a legitimate air to it so Gwen shrugged and answered.

  “Yeah. Stabbed, about two weeks ago. Luckily a healer was nearby when it happened. The doctors were all pretty careful not to tell me exactly what was hit, but it had to go pretty deep. I saw the handle sticking out. They did tell me I almost bought it. Not a big deal now, just a twinge occasionally, even that should be gone soon, I hope.” She grinned at the other woman and stopped rubbing at the scar, which for all that it could flare up, had healed a lot faster than it would have at home, she didn't know exactly what had done it but she'd had so many injuries and surgeries her whole life she had a pretty good idea how long a wound would take to heal. This one had been healing a good ten times faster than she'd expected.

  “Fight?”

  “Nah, just some crazy sacrifice thing. I'm still looking for the man that did it. You know... to make sure he can't do it again to anyone else?”

  Gloria nodded and clapped her on the back gently.

  “Right. Well, for right now, you can exercise the wound by doing some work. If you're healthy enough to try lifting a two thousand pound crystal pack, you can push a broom for a while.” One got pulled out of a cabinet next to the steps. “Take the stairs to the top and sweep all the outside deck surfaces you can reach. Don't bother the Captain or anyone in the pilot house. Other than that, just free the dirt and push it over the side. Try to send it far enough out that it won't hit the side on the way down. Got it?”

  Gwen nodded and walked up the stairs, going outside when they ran out, a hatch in front of her. The upper decks were nice, all shiny brass and polished wood. Not fancy, but the whole thing looked new, even though it had probably been around for a while. All the constant care showed.

  The sweeping went fine, just being sweeping even if it was thousands of feet up in the air. She made a point of moving the dirt, what little there was, to the back so that the sides would stay clean. It took a little longer to get this done than she'd thought it would, since the wooden deck held on to the dirt, making her have to scrub at it for a while to move it at all. Still, better to have a tough time sweeping now than a slippery deck several thousand feet above the ground when it rained or snowed. Then, the balloon on top should block most of that, but still, why take chances?

  Smitty gave her a nod as she passed him near the rail on the lowest of the three decks, which was mainly a walkway around the body of the gondola. Just before she managed to finish this, a bell rang. The redheaded man ran by her, calling out instructions as he did.

  “Warning bell. We have to stow the gear and go to emergency stations. Follow me!” He didn't stop moving, so she just did her best to follow him.

  They went down the stairs. At the bottom Smitty grabbed her broom and put it away quickly but in the correct fashion, tied in place, so it wouldn't be thrown around if things got rough. In the main cargo section the rest of the gear, rags and polish that had been used were stowed quickly as well. Then they went to a set of low benches along the left side just below the railing she'd polished earlier.

  Everyone sat and waited, since the man that seemed to be in charge, Groundling, didn't know any more than they did. After about ten minutes, Gloria came into the room and explained the situation to them, having come from the Captain directly with the news.

  “Right. So the Terrace Line passenger vessel Merriment lost main power four hours ago, which we knew, what we didn't know at the time, since the morons didn't report it to us, is that they're also having a constant release on one of the starboard maneuvering thrusters. Normally not a big issue, you just counterbalance by firing the opposite thruster and let them both run out of energy, then fix the issue and replace both packs.” A huge inhalation followed by a sigh came out of her then.

  “The problem here is that the dumb-asses didn't have any backup power left and ran the entire port side out of power fighting this on their trip over from Europa. Again, not really a problem, they could just spin until the pack ran out except that, naturally, a storm is moving into the area they're circling in. Nothing huge, but twenty knot winds catching a big boat like that broadside could scuttle it. This is considered circumstance dire, so if you have any ideas, start calling them out. They've got two hundred and thirty-seven lives on board, not counting crew. Their Captain asked for all aid.”

  Chapter twenty-three

  It took about half an hour for them to determine that almost anything normal wouldn't work. If the ships were the same size and they didn't mind destroying both to save the people on board one of them, they could pull alongside and push the other ship into flying straight long enough to land, if not safely, at least with a decent chance of success. The other ship wasn't anywhere near the same size, being nearly five times larger, meaning that none of the sturdy structures would lock with each other and that could rip either or even both ships apart if they even touched.

  Trying to pull the ship, with a line on the same side or from the front would be a bit like playing snap the whip with someone about five times bigger than you. They'd both crash and probably breach the hydrogen stores, which could cause a fire ball. At best they'd repeatedly smack into the other ship.

  Venting the hydrogen might work, if they could find a large area to land in, but of course they were over the Mid-American forest region, the wild lands, except for a small part of their circle which went over Deaconsville, a medium sized town that didn't really want an airship crashing into them that day. Gwen cocked her head when Gloria mentioned a Mid-Western forest but didn't say anything, since that kind of thing would probably be common knowledge here. She really wanted to know how that had happened. That area should have been grasslands as far as she knew, even if no one lived there.

  “OK then,” Gwen said, thinking out loud. “Why don't we restore the charge to one of the thrusters on the other side? I mean, they all work, right? They're just out of power?”

  Gloria nodded, slowly considering the idea, but obviously seeing problems.

  “We could, possibly, pull the crystal and replace it. It would be dangerous and someone would have to ride the thruster like a horse while we did the work... Big ships like that don't have cubbies like we do, they can only service them on the ground. Too big to work with in the air. But the crystal pack for that weighs nearly five hundred pounds, we've got some tough guys, but none of them can lift that alone, at least not while straddling one of those things. Plus, we don't carry packs in that size.” Palms turned up she made a lifting gesture that Gwen hadn't seen before. It seemed like the other woman had tried to throw the idea back to her.

  Gwen went silent, trying to come up with something, just in case no one else did. Some kind of magic maybe? She didn't know enough to even make suggestions there, the only thing she'd ever done with anything like that involved charging batteries, those crystal packs, she corrected herself.

  “Could we charge the battery in place? The crystal pack, couldn't one of us, or better yet, one of their crew, go out and charge it enough to counter the force of the movement? Then we could get them to a landing area, even if we had to tow them for a while, as long as they weren't trying to do anything but go straight?”

  Everyone stared at her, as if she'd lost her mind, but it still seemed doable to her. Dangerous, but the safe options seemed to be off the table already.

  After a while of looking off into space, the big woman started nodding, jumped up and ran to the machine shop, calling out for Groundling to get the Captain. The man took off at a run.

  “Curly, your idea, come with me. You're her lead Smitty, so move your ass too!”

  Admiral Welk dashed into the machine shop, grabbing the door frame to stop, a move that showed a lifetime of experience wearing flat soled shoes in dangerous situations. Gwen looked at it, admiring the grace involved. She'd have to figure out how to do things like that soon, or else
invent the traction sole. Otherwise she'd end up sliding every time she ran anywhere.

  “Something?” He didn't ask for more, knowing that the Engineer wouldn't have called him down just to chat about the weather.

  “Curly here has an idea, an in-situ charge of one of the dead crystals while it's still in the housing. We drop a person on the thruster, they pop the plate and charge it there, then they get pulled up and the Captain of the Merriment can straighten,” she yelled, cutting something while trying to say all this. “All we need to do it is a side-step conductor and a person willing to sit on a thruster at four thousand feet while charging the thing. I figure we can do it with a quarter charge.”

  The man pulled his chin.

  “We don't have the six hours it would take for any of us to do even that much, and while Captain Westmorland could do it, our lives wouldn't be worth the cyanide to kill us if we let her. Not for a mere two hundred and thirty-seven people, especially since more than half are foreigners.”