Arabella of Mars(21)
“Navy pay’s not much,” the lieutenant admitted. “But there’s prizes for captured ships! One action could make you rich!”
“Possibly. Eventually. But the navy will withhold your pay until you return home, however long that may be. If ever.”
Arabella looked back and forth between the two men. Whom should she trust, the red-faced English officer or the well-spoken foreigner? Or should she run from them both?
The lieutenant might be a good English seaman, but he stank of rum and his uniform coat was filthy and disheveled. The foreigner in the buff coat of a Mars Company ship’s officer, meanwhile, had the calm cool bearing of a gentleman … even an aristocrat.
“Furthermore,” he continued, “the navy may chain you into your hammock in port, as a deterrent against desertion.”
“Don’t listen to him!” the lieutenant roared. “Foreign b____d will say any thing to get a good English seaman. Marsman? Go with him and you’ll wake up halfway to Shanghai, and never see a penny!”
The stranger drew himself to his full height. “I am a captain in the service of the Honorable Mars Company, and I will not stand for any more such insults!”
The lieutenant’s mouth curled into a snarl, and Arabella realized that he was very likely about to say something that might lead to fisticuffs.
And if these two men fought, her chance for Mars on either of their ships might very well be the victim.
“Is that true?” she asked the lieutenant, all in a rush. “About chaining men into their hammocks in port?”
He hesitated before responding, his gaze darting from the stranger to Arabella. “Absolutely not,” he said eventually, but his vehemence had died away.
Arabella knew a lie when she heard one. She turned to the foreigner. “And your ship, sir, is she a fast one?”
The man grinned broadly. “The very fastest, sir.”
Arabella looked from one man to the other, considering, then returned to the foreigner. “I do not believe I have had the pleasure,” she said, and extended her hand. “Arthur Ashby, sir, of Oxfordshire.”
“Captain Prakash Singh of the Mars Company airship Diana,” he replied, and took it.
*
“You said you had been chasing me for an hour?” Arabella said to Captain Singh as they walked down the street toward the docks, leaving the ranting lieutenant behind.
“Indeed I have, sir,” the captain replied, stepping around barrel-toting stevedores as neatly as a debutante at a ball. “Ever since you left Clarkson’s Clockworks. And quite a merry chase you led me, sir. If I had not by chance encountered a man with a very long scarf, of whom, as it happens, you had asked directions, I would have lost you completely.” His head waggled from side to side on his neck, neither rotating nor tilting … a rather disturbing motion that Arabella had never seen any one perform before, and whose meaning she did not know. “That man Clarkson is an ignoramus. All the automata in his shop are built by others; he himself understands only how profitably they may be sold. You are not the first to identify the flaw in the automaton artist’s work, and receive nothing but scorn for your sharp eye.” The captain stopped walking, and perforce Arabella did as well, not knowing where she was being led. The captain looked down at her with a steady gaze. “You are, however, the first I have seen to identify the source of the problem and suggest a solution.”
His deep brown eyes were so filled with intense intelligence that Arabella had to drop her gaze. “It was obvious, sir.”
“And there we have it,” the captain replied, and set off again. Arabella had to hurry to keep up with his long-legged stride. “This ragged boy who sees so easily what others not only miss, but deny.” He contemplated Arabella for a moment. “Where is it that you were educated? I cannot place your accent.”
“My father has a plantation in … in the country, sir, quite far from town. He taught me himself, mostly.” In point of fact, Father had shared with her only his interest in automata. As far as formal schooling, Father had taught only Michael, leaving Arabella to be educated by her mother. But her itkhalya, Khema, had taught her much on the subject of Mars and Martians, constantly questioning and prodding her to greater comprehension. “I also had a … tutor.”
“I myself, despite the many tutors provided by my own father, am mostly self-taught in all areas of significance.” Again he waggled his head in that unusual way. “In any case, after you departed, I paused and inspected the malfunctioning device, and satisfied myself that you were correct. So I said to myself, this is exactly the man I need for my crew, and I sought you out.”
Arabella could barely believe her luck. “You would take me on as a member of your crew? To Mars?”
“Subject to certain qualifications,” he replied.
Arabella swallowed. “I must confess, sir, that I can neither reef nor hand nor steer, whatever those things may be.”
“These things can be learned. However, the Company imposes strict standards for its airmen, so I may not bring you aboard with that status. Would you object to the title of captain’s boy?”
Arabella was keenly aware just how much she did not know about naval titles and the running of a Mars-bound merchant ship. “I suppose not.”
“In any case, those are not the qualifications to which I referred. Ah, here we are.”