my gas scrubbers?’
‘Some of it might have leaked into the machine when the Sprite was back in the pens,’ said Amelia.
T’ricola indicated a hole in the copper tube feeding the scrubbers. ‘This was holed through with a metal punch, and then the glue was deliberately poured in. I checked our stores. There’s a can of fixative missing.’
Commodore Black tapped the burnt machinery in frustration. ‘That’s a mortal clever way to sabotage a boat. Not quite enough to sink us and move us all along the Circle, but sufficient to keep us on the surface like a dead fish waiting to be spotted by the gulls.’
Amelia looked at the commodore. ‘We can’t stay submerged under the river now?’
‘We’re not one of your pocket aerostats, Amelia. We have no chimneys on the Sprite and we can’t vent our engines through the periscope. If the scrubbers have packed up, then we have to dump the exhaust manually, rather than converting it into dust bricks, and that means running with open vents up on the surface.’
T’ricola angrily kicked the puddled water left by the fire crew. ‘It’s one of Bull’s people that did this. They think if we scratch the expedition before we get to Rapalaw Junction then they all get to sail free back to Jackals with full pardons in their pockets.’
‘Then they’ll be thinking wrong,’ said Black. ‘T’ricola, tell Billy and Gabriel to be keeping an eye on the crew. Then find Veryann and send her down here.’
Amelia almost felt sorry for whoever had done the damage when the situation was explained to Veryann. The Catosian turned pale with anger as the implications of the sabotage settled in.
‘Can this be repaired?’ Veryann asked.
‘Ah, my poor boat. We may be able to jury-rig her at one of the larger workshops in Rapalaw Junction,’ said the commodore. ‘We shall see. If anyone can repair a gas scrubber in this state, it is T’ricola. She can coax melted iron and twisted steel back to life. I have seen her do it before.’
‘I shall post armed sentries,’ said Veryann. ‘Have Gabriel McCabe indicate all your vital systems to us – the things a traitor would go for next: the main pistons, our water supply, fuel, our air. We must guard them all.’
‘I’ll do that, lass,’ said the commodore. ‘But be warned, there is not much on my beautiful Sprite that is not vital to our survival.’
Veryann stood looking crossly at the ruined machinery in the scrubber chamber as the commodore and Amelia turned to leave for the main engine room.
‘My poor stars,’ she heard Black groan. ‘Is it not enough that to get my own boat back I have to plunge her into the heart of treacherous Liongeli? Now I find I have a wicked cuckoo making a home in my nest.’
A cuckoo? One of Bull Kammerlan’s convicts trying to shorten their sentence? Veryann pulled out her boot knife – almost a short sword – and rammed it into the exposed tiles. If the commodore had been shown the second crystal-book back in Middlesteel, he might think differently. Someone on board was playing a very dangerous game in trying to stop Abraham Quest’s expedition. Someone who obviously knew things they had no right to know. But a u-boat sailing up the Shedarkshe was a dangerous place to keep a secret. She would make sure that whoever held it would be leaving it in the jungle … along with their decaying bones.
Damson Beeton clutched the cream card of the invitation, her cotton mittens barely keeping the chill out as the cold lifted off the Gambleflowers’ waters and washed across the island. The Islands of the Skerries sat in the middle of Middlesteel’s great river, their isolation making them an ideal home for the Jackelian quality; those rich enough not to want to bother with tall walls for their mansions, or private guards to keep the fingers of the capital’s cracksmen, anglers, rampers and myriad other trades of the criminal flash mob out of their silver.
Rich enough to pay for isolation, although, much to the damson’s disgust in this particular instance, not rich enough to want to pay for a full staff to clean Dolorous Hall. A single housekeeper and butler, and not much of a butler at that, to keep a gentleman of the master’s station in the state he deserved to be kept in. It was not proper. No it wasn’t. Not that anyone even knew where the master’s wealth came from. Family money, so the gossip ran. Twenty thousand gold guineas a year. Almost as rich as a real gentleman like Abraham Quest, or one of the bankers from the counting houses of Sun Gate. Jackals was a nation of shopkeepers and merchants, but as well as he paid her, the master of the house would not stretch to any staff larger than a few day-men and maids boated across every morning to help her dust, cook and keep the gardens. It simply was not proper.
‘Every afternoon, he is always here,’ she said to Septimoth, the silent butler waiting beside her. ‘It is not right.’
Septimoth stood there, a statue in the cold – a bony lizard-like statue with wings folded like those of a stone angel. That was another thing. Who ever heard of having a lashlite as a retainer? Graspers made fine servants. Steammen would toil for you all day long and bear life’s travails with stoic resolve. But a lashlite? They preferred their village nests in the mountains and hunts high in the airless atmosphere, tracking the balloon-like skraypers that preyed on airships. Now there was a valuable service to the nation. Hunting skraypers. As a butler, Septimoth – surly, enigmatic lashlite that he was – was frankly abominable.
‘It is his habit,’ said Septimoth. ‘We must respect his wishes, Damson Beeton.’
‘Tish and tosh,’ said the housekeeper. ‘He needs to be out and about, embracing society, not drinking alone in the cold halls of this old place.’ She waved her invitation at the lash-lite. ‘Every day I feed the fireplace with a dozen such as this, all unanswered by him. The height of rudeness. Society wishes to clutch us to its bosom, Septimoth, and we should not turn our back on society.’
‘I believe the master has finished his meditation now,’ said Septimoth.
‘Meditation is it, you say?’ said Damson Beeton. ‘That’s a fancy name for moping about, in my book.’
Septimoth kept his own counsel, and Damson Beeton tutted. How many more nights would she have to stand and ogle the other islands of the Skerries – the river awash with taxi-boat lanterns rowing the great and the good to parties and dinners, the laughter in the gardens, the blaze of chandeliers? It was obvious that the grim corridors of Dolorous Hall would be better filled with the product of her social organizing. But then, would anyone come if she got her way? Dolorous Isle was said to be unlucky. Cursed by its proximity to the old heart of Middlesteel, the part of the city drowned by the great flood of 1570, and then drowned again by design when the river was widened to stop a reoccurrence of the disaster. River boats piloted by those new to the trade still often struck the spire of Lumphill Cathedral protruding from the water, despite parliament’s red buoys bobbing in the currents nearby.
In the garden, the master stood up, leaving his apple tree behind as he shut the gate on the little enclosure. Cornelius Fortune looked tired, even to Damson Beeton’s eyes. The lash-lite and the old woman followed their employer back to the steps of the mansion.
Cornelius noticed the invitation Damson Beeton was clutching. ‘Is it tonight, damson? I had forgotten, to tell you the truth. I should sleep now, I am so tired, but if you have said yes …’
‘Sleep? Why you are a slack-a-bed, sir, you have been sleeping all through the morning and the afternoon. The least you can do now is take the air of the evening in polite company.’
Cornelius rubbed his red eyes. ‘Forgive me, Damson Beeton. It seems as if I have been up for hours.’
‘This is an event to raise finances for the poor,’ chided the housekeeper. ‘Presided over by the House of Quest. There is a function every evening for the rest of the week, so if you can’t make this night, you have no excuse for not attending