Airship Nation (Darkworld Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “The password is…wait, that was yesterday. Today’s password is…” His accent was so thick. Even to his own ear he sounded like the villain in one of those Pancho Villa westerns.

  It was too much. The boy lunged toward Loren with the bayonet. Pease kicked the feet out from under him as he passed. Loren threw himself to the left to avoid the blade, but it tore anyway into the flesh of his right calf. Pease was on top of the sailor. He struck him hard behind the ear with his doubled fist. The boy didn’t move. Loren rolled over, feeling the knife edge tear further down his leg There was blood flowing into the cloth of his jeans.

  Pease had an arm around him, lifting hard. Loren felt himself jerked upwards as he had when Claymore had rescued him from the water. Pease got his shoulder under Loren and carried him the few remaining yards to the first of the little boats. He stepped into the boat, too fast and too heavily loaded. The dinghy skittered backward under his weight, came up sharply against its painter, and threw the two of them down across its thwarts. Loren felt his head crash into painted wood. He looked up dizzily to see that Pease had gone over the side. The dinghy had shipped a good deal of water, but was still upright and afloat. Pease was standing in the mud of the bottom. He pulled himself up onto the dock, released the painter, and stepped down carefully into the dinghy. There was no light to see how to raise the sail, but dinghies are mostly all alike. He felt along the mast for the halyard, thanking his good luck that the sail had been left bent on to the mast and boom rather than put away in its bag. It came up half way and no further. He reached down the boom, expecting to find sail stops, tying the canvas down against the wood. There were two of them. He ripped them off and threw them into the bottom of the boat. In another few seconds, the sail was up and cleated. The wind was fair from the west. The little boat heeled over and gathered way. Pease had a foot on the tiller. With a grunt, he lifted himself over Loren, and settled heavily and soggily into the stern. He steered the dinghy out into the dark river. When they had attained its center, more or less, he eased the sail. Their course was almost dead down wind.

  Pease had his knife out and the light from his pack. He shone it down into the boat onto Loren’s leg. The bilge was red with blood. He ripped up the pants leg to expose the wound. The blood was flowing freely.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Tell me what to do, Loren.”

  “Press,” said Loren. He could barely concentrate. “Press hard. Press con tela. ”

  “With what?”

  “Con algadon. Con tela. Una pression firma.”

  “What the hell is algadon?” Pease tried to remember from his Spanish lessons from years ago. “Cotton?”

  “Si. O tela. Non importa qual tela.”

  “Cloth.” His own pack was open, he reached inside, feeling for anything dry. He came out with a flannel shirt. With his knife he began ripping it into square pieces and long strips.

  “Press. If it gets, you know, soaked…” He couldn’t think of what he’d meant to say next.”

  “If it gets soaked I put another on top and keep pressing, is that it?”

  “Si.”

  Loren’s leg didn’t hurt. What hurt was his head. The leg just felt numb. He could sense Pease over him, still steering the dinghy by feel with his knee. There was the sound again of fabric being ripped up. He was aware of the sloshing of water and blood around him in the boat. As Pease began to apply pressure to the leg, Loren passed out.

  By the time he came around it was dawn. Pease was in the stern with one arm over the tiller. His eyes were on the horizon. Loren’s lower leg felt stiff and sore. And he had a headache. But all in all, he didn’t feel too bad. There would be fever and infection later, he knew, but by that time they would be back on Dejah Thoris where there were antibiotics in the first aid kit. He lifted himself up onto his elbows to see over the thwarts. There was a flat green bank just opposite him to the south. They were hugging the Virginia side, since it was mostly state parks and reserves and likely to be deserted. The Maryland shore was a good five miles away to the north.

  “Did we pass under the toll bridge?” Loren asked.

  “Oh, yes. About 1:30. That’s Coles Point just ahead.” Pease nodded to a low lying projection in the shore, almost directly off their bow. They had made much better progress during the night than they had had any right to expect. The wind was still fair from the west.

  “Did you raise Dejah Thoris?”

  “All done. She’ll be waiting for us just below St. George Island. We’ll be there in an hour or less if the wind holds.”

  Loren put his nose up into the wind. “It will hold. If it’s going to die, it dies before dawn. This will hold all day. I need some more dressings please.”

  Pease lifted himself to his knees. He pushed the open pack toward Loren. There were some cut up squares and strips of clean cotton resting on top. “Can I help?”

  “No, let me do it. Only if I faint — then you just do the same as before.”

  Loren peeled the stiff blood-soaked flannel off a layer at a time. The blood was dark and congealed. When he removed the last thickness of cloth, there was some bright red flow.

  Pease let out a soft “Oooof…” and settled down heavily on the dinghy floor. His face was white.

  “Never turn away,” Loren said gently. “Try not to turn your eyes away, if you can. Refuse to turn away and you can master what you feel. And then the next time it will be a little easier, and the next time easier still.” Pease looked dubious.

  “Why are you smiling, Martine?”

  “Because of the brave D.D. Pease, as brave a man as I know. He can do whatever he has to when others are just busy fearing for their lives. But on a quiet morning with the adventure all over, he comes near to fainting at the sight of a little blood.”

  Pease forced himself to watch as Loren applied fresh dressings. Just as that was done, they pulled even with Coles Point. As they made their turn, the low spit of land that was St. George Island came into view. And just beneath the island, in its lee, was a tall pyramid of sail, Dejah Thoris. As they watched, the vessel put about and began stand up toward them. Thirty minutes later they were safe on board.

  2

  THE TURNING TOWARD

  Senator Chandler Hopkins, who had once been President of Cornell University, was now President of . . . of what? Of Baracoa Beach village? No, it must be something much grander than that, a community of academics and intellectuals who had defied the established order – yes, that was it – to bring Civilization back to the earth. Since most of his Day Hall staff, almost the entire management structure of the university, had come along to Fort Lauderdale to be present as Homer was honored by the Academy, most of them had been enlisted in Homer’s plan and escaped to Cuba, and here they were. Chandler had unhesitatingly drafted them into governance of the community. They had retained their academic titles: Proctor, Chancellor, and so forth.

  It had all worked out rather well, if he did say so himself. All, that is, but the position of Provost, now occupied by Dr. Francis Suzikaya, past President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Chandler had the vague sense that Suzikaya was a threat. Or maybe threat was too heavy a word—what the man was was an intolerable pain in the ass. He would simply not let Chandler alone to practice the prerogatives of his office. Almost any decision the President made would bring his new Provost into his office, head shaking and ponderous voice lecturing. What a sourpuss!

  To Chandler’s way of thinking, the role of Provost ought to have been limited to academic concerns. Whether the school children were getting sufficient Latin or maths or history, that sort of thing, was clearly the Provost’s domain. But certainly not the governing of the island. Yet just as Chandler had widened his own authority (and that of the Proctor and the Chancellor and the Bursar and the Deans) to matters outside of academia, so too Suzikaya wanted to enlarge his role. He thought himself a Provost of all matters, one who was responsible to see that the basic principles of ethical behavior were applied evenly to an
y and every aspect of their emerging society. He was even thinking of a constitution for Baracoa, complete with parliaments and courts and separation of powers and limitation of authority.

  Limitation of authority! That was one thing that Chandler just didn’t need at all, particularly at this delicate juncture. Anyway, what justification could there possibly be for limiting his authority after his most recent splendid performance? He had steered Baracoa through an honest-to-god war, a pitched sea battle followed by a daring counter-attack on Fort Belvoir. His handling of the matter had been nearly flawless. He had applied direction where direction was needed, but still allowed others to feel they were in charge. There probably was not another man on the planet who could have pulled it off. And now in the midst of what should have been his triumph, he was bogged down instead by Suzikaya’s constant whining.

  Finally it bothered him enough to turn to his wife Candace for advice. He laid his problem on her as he had so many times before. To his surprise, her response was not at all what he’d learned to expect.

  “Honestly, Chandler. You’ve brought this on yourself.”

  “Really, my dear…”

  “How many times have you told me that you were, in your heart, just a simple history teacher, and always wanted to go back to being just that?”

  “Yes, well, that has always been my…”

  “And now you’ve had the perfect opportunity. Nearly one hundred children that Loren and Sonia rescued from the school ship, all needing education, and we have not nearly enough teachers. And what did you do? You turned your back on teaching, on the simple life you always extolled, and went plunging right back into the politics. Did you think that someone else wouldn’t have come forward to run the island if you hadn’t leapt in? There would have been droves of candidates, all of them quite capable. But you couldn’t resist. You couldn’t restrain yourself. You don’t want to be a simple teacher. You want to be King of the Mountain. Don’t come complaining to me about the burden of politics. You wanted it, and you got it.”

  There was no understanding Candace these days. It was true she had found herself, in some way, found a calling that had been denied her before: She was a marvelous commander. She ran the tightest ship in Baracoa’s little navy, everyone was saying so. But was that any reason why she couldn’t still be a caring wife, ready to carry some of her husband’s terrible load, or at least to give him sympathy? That was all he had asked, sympathy and maybe some clever idea for how to lighten the burdens. But no, she was too busy with her own new responsibilities. Too busy for her own husband!

  He made his way down toward the beach, feeling dreadfully sorry for himself. There were some slate outcroppings where he sometimes went to look out over the sea and think about his troubles. He found his way out onto the rocks. His feet felt like lead underneath him. He took off his shoes and socks and plunged his feet in the cool sea.

  A scraping sound behind him on the rocks. He looked back to see Stacey scrambling up toward him. She was on recess with Melissa Blake’s eighth grade class, playing at the beach. “Hi, daddy.”

  “Good morning, dear.” Chandler tried a brave little smile.

  Stacey scrunched down on the rocks beside him and slipped her hand into his. “Why so blue, Senator?”

  “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand, my dear.”

  “Adult stuff, I guess.”

  “Yes.” Chandler sighed.

  Stacey held her tongue, knowing he would elaborate.

  “I turned for help, or at least for some encouragement, to your mother. And, I’m sorry to say, she was just too busy for me. Told me to take my troubles elsewhere.” His voice was tragic.

  “Hmmm.” said Stacey. “That doesn’t sound like our Candace. When she lets me know I have to solve a problem by myself, it never means she’s too busy or not interested. It means she really believes this is one of those problems I’ve got to solve by myself.”

  “Yes. That is, perhaps, what she meant. But still…” He considered his next line, something about the terrible burdens of responsibility.

  “The burdens of responsibility are getting to you, aren’t they, daddy?”

  “Yes! I mean, yes. Well, sometimes.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And, you see, when you’re at the top of the heap, my dear, King of the Mountain, so to speak, there’s really no one you can confide in. No one at all. It’s rather…lonely.”

  “I see.” Stacey chewed it over for a while. “Of course you could do what everyone else in Baracoa does when they’ve got problems and need someone to to talk them out with.”

  “What does everyone else do?”

  “Talk to Kelly, of course. What else?”

  “Kelly?”

  “Of course. When Keesha and Adjouan had a big fight on the day before their wedding, each of them went to Kelly. And by the next day, as you saw, they were so in love again that we were all crying when they took their vows. And Proctor Pinkham goes to Kelly when he’s got a problem, and so does Loren, and Maria, and Mommy, and I do too. Any kind of problem.”

  “Well. That is a suggestion.”

  There was a bell ringing back on the beach. “Got to go.” Stacey jumped up and ran back to join her class.

  Others were naturally turning to Kelly for help, but Chandler had never been inclined to do so himself. He still thought of her as she had been when he’d first met her back at Cornell, the lowest level clerk-typist employed by Day Hall. She was everyone else’s confidante, he thought sadly, but not for him. No rest for the weary, no support, no succor for the King of the Mountain. He decided to go looking for her anyway.

  Kelly was mowing the grassy green at the center of the faculty village when he found her. She had on a tee shirt and running shorts, both soaked with sweat. In order to push the old manual mower, she had to bend over nearly parallel to the ground, straining for every foot of progress.

  “Good morning, Kelly.”

  “Hi, Senator.” She pushed the mower off to one side and picked up a pair of clippers, more sociable work in case he wanted to talk. “What’s up?”

  “Not a thing, really. Just happening by. But if you have a moment….”

  And so he unburdened himself of the whole running flap with Suzikaya. Of course he presented it as though it were not a problem at all, just something had happened to cross his mind at the moment. He ended up not too clear himself what he was asking of her. But Kelly thought it over over calmly as she clipped the border by the sidewalk.

  “Nobody’s real sure,” she said, “just what a Provost is. And nobody’s very sure either of what the Chancellor’s function ought to be. So I don’t see how anyone could object if you declared that the Provost ought to report from now on through the Chancellor instead of directly to the President. If you made that little change, it would be Chancellor Brill who got the benefit of Dr. Suzikaya’s complaining. And so, instead of being a bother to you, not that you said he was a bother, but to extent that he was, he would be a bother to the Chancellor instead. Suzikaya would use up a lot less of your time, and Chancellor Brill, because he would be more involved with the Provost, would use up less of your time as well. Not that you ever implied that the Chancellor was a bother…”

  “No. But he does, sometimes, tend to be a bit longwinded…”

  “Yes, so he could be longwinded with Provost Suzikaya instead of with you. And the Provost could be longwinded with Chancellor Brill instead of with you. All the time they spent with each other would be time that you were free of both of them.”

  Too beautiful. Chandler couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it himself. “I see. Well, it does bear some thinking over, of course. I will have to consider all the consequences. But still, all in all, it does seem to be a rather admirable solution. Well, ‘solution’ is perhaps the wrong word, since there really was no problem. But if there were a problem, this, then, would be a solution to it, so to speak. And an admirable one. I shall have to keep it in mind. Thank you, my dear.” />
  “Sure, Senator. Any time.”

  Sonia was one person on the island who didn’t seek advice from Kelly. They were friends, but increasingly distant ones. Their conversations were limited to things that didn’t matter very much, at least things that didn’t matter very much to Sonia. The dark troubles that had been haunting her increasingly since the Effector was first turned on would have made no sense to Kelly or to most of the others. There was only one person she could think of who might be able to help. He was the only one who would not require explanations of the context of her dismay. And when that dismay finally became too much to bear alone, she sought him out.

  “Hello. Is anyone here?” Sonia peered into the dark interior of the cottage. It was bright sunshine outside, making the inside even more obscure. As her eyes adjusted, she made out a figure standing calmly by the table, staring up and into the rafters of the little building, one hand braced on the tabletop. He looked like he had been standing there a long time.

  “Claymore?”

  “Hullo.”

  “It’s Sonia.”

  “Hullo, Sonia.”

  “Could I come in, do you think?”

  “I think you’re already in.”

  “I am. I need to be here, Claymore. I need to lean on you.”

  “You do?”

  “There is something inside of me, something gnawing away at my heart.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It never stops, Claymore. Never stops gnawing.”

  “An animal? A worm?”

  “Like a giant worm. But made up of distress.”

  “A distress worm.”

  “Yes. Mostly I have dreams.”

  He seemed relieved to consider dreams instead of worms. “Oh, as to that,“ he said, “I have dreams as well. But no worms.”