Arabella of Mars(50)

Heart pounding, Arabella cast her gaze about the cabin. Amidst the clutter and damage, the automaton’s lenses still glittered intact in their brass fittings. Surely the turn of the navigator’s head was only a reaction to her own rather sudden motion, a purely mechanical response.

Surely.

*

The surgeon having expropriated Arabella to the captain’s care, she was largely excused from her other duties, and for the next several days she spent most of her waking hours in the great cabin. Yet, despite the seriousness of the task and the diligence with which she performed it, it still occupied no more than half the day.

The time she spent changing the captain’s dressings, mopping his fevered brow, and rearranging his disordered bed-clothes was heartrendingly difficult, for many reasons, but also very dear to her. Yet she could not spend nearly as much time at these tasks as she might wish, for no matter what her feelings, her prime consideration was to maintain her identity as Arthur Ashby. No captain’s boy, however loyal, would moon over his superior officer as much as Arabella, left to her own devices, might do.

And so Arabella wound, cleaned, and fueled the lamps. She restored books, charts, and instruments to the places from which they had been dislodged by the ship’s violent maneuvers and the impacts of the French cannonballs. Every item of brass or brightwork she polished until it gleamed. She assisted the ship’s carpenter in the repair of the cabin’s bulkheads, fittings, and furniture.

She even cleaned and inspected Aadim. Hesitantly at first, as though approaching an unfamiliar shokari, she brushed soot from his face and clothes, but like the inanimate object he was he did not react. Soon confidence began to return, and she made sure that his springs were wound and all his workings were free of splinters and grit. His other parts, too, which extended throughout the ship, she inspected and repaired as much as she was able.

So diligent was she in her care of the captain and his cabin that the ship’s officers seemingly began to accept her as part of its furniture, taking little notice of her when they came to visit. Apart from their frequent appearances to assess the captain’s condition and to extend their best wishes to his unconscious, but perhaps still receptive, ears, they also used the cabin as a meeting-place for private conferences away from the crew’s hearing. And though they often shooed Arabella out for the most confidential of these discussions, occasionally they seemed to forget that she was there, and when that did occur she did her best to ignore their muttered conversation. But on one such occasion, acting captain Richardson conferring with the other officers on some point of navigation, Arabella overheard something that made her ears perk up.

“Though I’m loath to suggest it,” said Stross, the ship’s sailing-master, “we could try the clockwork navigator.”

Upon hearing this, Arabella glanced toward Aadim, who still sat stiff and unmoving in his accustomed place. After cleaning and inspecting him, Arabella had wound his springs daily, and to the best of her knowledge he was entirely functional. Why would the master imply he was not available?

Surreptitiously she edged closer to the officers’ conversation.

“We do have its draughts,” the master continued, “and the instructions Captain Singh wrote up.…”

“No,” said Richardson, with a sad shake of his head. “I can’t count the number of times he tried to teach me to work the d____d thing, and no slightest bit of it ever stuck in my brain. Even with written instructions, I’m sure I’d never trust any course that came out.” He sighed. “I wish Kerrigan had lived. The man was a lout and a martinet, but he was better with the automaton than I.”

Even as she continued to quietly polish the lamps behind the captain’s hammock, Arabella quivered with tension. She felt that she should volunteer her knowledge of Aadim’s workings … yet she feared calling attention to herself, for any additional attention could reveal her sex. Furthermore, she lacked confidence in her own, only somewhat trained, skills with the automaton.

“Well, then,” the master began, but then fell silent, peering out the window with a distant, considering expression. “Well, then,” he began again, “I suppose I shall just have to do my best with ruler and compass. But I must warn you that it will be a near thing, and if we fail to intercept this asteroid…” He blew out a breath. “Well, I cannot tell you what we’ll do then.”

“Do what you can,” Richardson said, clapping the master on the shoulder, “and put your trust in God.”

“I shall endeavor to do so,” the master replied, closing his eyes and dipping his head.

*

The conversation stuck in Arabella’s head, especially because of the unanswered questions it raised. For the whole rest of that day, in between her other chores, she did what she could to remain within earshot of the master and the other officers, trying to overhear and piece together some idea of the ship’s situation.

If nothing else, the task distracted her from the captain’s deteriorating condition. Despite all her attentions and the surgeon’s care, he seemed to be growing thinner; though his twitching and trembling continued, its frequency and strength were diminishing; even his mahogany brown skin, now dry and clammy, had paled to a weathered gray.

Every half an hour she dribbled water on his lips and waited for the dry and leathery tongue to lap it up. At these moments the captain’s face seemed at its most animated, merely asleep rather than unconscious, but when the water was gone it returned to a disturbing, ashen mask of himself.