Arabella of Mars(22)

They rounded a corner. There, floating serenely in the Thames beneath three enormous white balloons, lay the largest and most beautiful airship Arabella had ever seen.

On her stern was painted and gold-leafed the name Diana.

*

On several occasions Arabella had visited the shipyards at Fort Augusta on Mars with her father, to observe at first hand the construction and fitting-out of airships built from the wood of his plantation. This Diana was at least a third again longer and broader than any she had seen there; her single visible mast towered more than a hundred feet in the air, and each of her three globular balloons loomed at least as large. Tiny airmen swarmed over the gleaming white balloons, clinging to the netting stretched taut over each one.

The ship’s lacquered khoresh-wood gleamed honey-blond in the afternoon sun. Beneath the quarterdeck at the stern end, closest to Arabella, a broad, paned window spanned the width of the ship; behind this window, she knew, lay the captain’s cabin. The wood of the stern to either side of this window was fancifully and dramatically carved with allegorical figures: on one side the goddess Diana, of course, with her quiver of arrows and her dog, and on the other side a leaping stag. These were tastefully accented with gold leaf and highlights of red and black paint, which only served to emphasize the natural beauty of the wood.

Arabella and the captain walked out onto the dock nearest the ship, where five airmen immediately leapt to attention. One, a boy younger than Arabella in a buff coat like the captain’s, directed them with shouted commands; the other four, burly men in matching flat caps, first stood ramrod-straight with oars held high, then descended with alacrity into a small boat tied up at the dock’s end. “Take us across, Mr. Binion,” the captain said to the young officer, and with smooth dignity he too climbed down into the boat.

Arabella herself took what seemed like forever to make her way down into the pitching, bobbing little craft, finally succeeding only with the little officer’s assistance. His smug, cocky smile at Arabella’s discomfiture did not endear him to her, but she supposed that in time she too would learn to bound with swift assurance from dock to boat.

“Out sweeps,” the little officer cried once the captain and Arabella were seated, and with swift strong motions the four airmen rowed toward the anchored airship. They seemed eager, disciplined, and well-fed, with the enormous thighs and calves typical of their profession matched by broad bands of muscle twining across their backs and down their arms as they stretched out and pulled. They moved in easy unison, the rhythmic commands of the officer seeming to acknowledge rather than to direct their actions.

Surreptitiously, Arabella also inspected the captain, who sat beside her, facing forward as she was. He was an odd sort, a foreigner in command of an English ship, with his own distinct accent. In some ways he was even farther from home than she was. She watched his eyes as the boat rowed across the water, rocking with each surge of the oars. Even as the boat tilted with each strong stroke, his eyes stayed level and fixed on the windows of the captain’s cabin.

Something of great interest to the captain lay within. Something that consumed his entire attention. But what?

The boat came up alongside Diana’s bows, rippling with the sun that sparked from the river water. The ship’s bowsprit lay nearly horizontal, rather than being steeply raked like the seagoing ships nearby, and her figurehead was another carving of Diana, with her quiver across her shoulder and one arm outstretched, holding a bow and a pair of arrows. Unlike the crude little figures she had seen on some other ships, this figurehead was larger than life and very finely carved. Diana’s eyes seemed full of intelligent intensity, like her captain’s.

As they approached the ship, the captain seemed to quiver with … no, it could not be fear. Suppressed excitement. But he said nothing, and Arabella did likewise.

“Ahoy the boat!” came a cry from the forecastle.

“Diana!” replied the little officer. His voice piped even higher than Arabella’s, but it carried across the waves with a power and a degree of gravitas far in excess of the boy’s size. It was a type of voice, she thought, that she would do well to emulate.

Two boys scrambled down Diana’s side to steady the boat and assist Arabella to board; the captain, of course, required no such assistance. As his foot touched the deck, the bosun’s pipe sounded a tune and all the men present snapped smartly to attention.

The captain might be a foreigner. His coat might be Mars Company buff, rather than Navy blue. But he was still a ship’s captain—he might as well be a god in his little world, once under way—and clearly well respected and obeyed by his men. And this man wanted Arabella for his crew? Again she was overwhelmed by her good fortune.

“Leak test on the envelopes complete, sir,” said another officer, this one a grown man with wide feathery side-whiskers. Arabella would need to learn quickly how to understand the ranks and responsibilities of the ship’s officers from the details of their coats. “Two leaks found and patched.”

“Excellent work, Mr. Kerrigan. I will forgo inspection at this time. You may strike the envelopes at your discretion. Is all in readiness for departure at first light?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Very well. Send the call for inflation at eight bells, set the ballast for rising trim, and dismiss the boats … all save one.” He looked at Arabella. “We might need to return this one to shore, if he does not meet qualifications.”