Arabella of Mars(52)

“How long have you been hiding there?” Richardson snapped, straightening in the air, his expression cold. The other officers skewered Arabella with their gazes, pinning her to the spot where she floated. “What’s your name?”

This was Arabella’s worst nightmare. “I—I’m Ashby, sir. I’m, I’m tending to the captain, sir.” As she spoke, she realized that she had positioned herself between the captain and the quarreling officers, as though to protect him from the knowledge of his crew’s disarray. “Surgeon’s orders, sir.”

“Surgeon’s orders or no, you are not to intrude upon my private conferences with—”

“Just a moment, sir,” Stross interrupted. Richardson fixed him with a hard glance, but he stood his ground, glaring back just as hard for a moment before turning his attention to Arabella. “Did you say ‘drogues,’ lad?”

Arabella swallowed. “Aye, sir, I did.”

Stross licked his lips, staring upward in concentration, then peered down at the chart. “Mr. Quinn, did you mention linens?”

The purser stammered for a moment before replying. “W-we’ve fifteen crates of fine linens, yes, bound for Fort Augusta.”

“Tablecloths, that sort of thing? Good sturdy Ulster linen?”

“What the d—l does—?” cried Richardson.

Stross held up a hand in Richardson’s face, quite rudely. “Tablecloths!” he demanded of the purser. “Do we have some? At least ten or twenty?”

“Yes!” the purser squeaked. “Sixty, in fact, I think.”

Stross nodded slowly, scratching his chin, contemplating the chart. He reached out one finger and tapped the cross-current Arabella had spotted, then took the calipers and measured the distance from there to the pin representing Diana. “Drogues,” he repeated, and looked Arabella right in the eye.

“We’d have to start right away, sir,” Arabella said.

“Aye,” Stross said. “And the calculations will be tricky. Very tricky indeed, without the navigator.”

In for a penny, thought Arabella. “I can work the navigator, sir. A bit.”

All the officers looked at her.

“The captain was teaching me, sirs. Before the French attacked.”

Richardson’s glance darted from Arabella to Stross and back again. “What in blue blazes are you contemplating?”

Stross glared balefully at the acting captain. “You do know what a drogue is, don’t you, sir?”

For a long moment Richardson blinked rapidly, lips pressed together, jaw set hard. “Refresh my memory,” he spat at last.

Stross grinned and nodded toward Arabella. “I’m sure Ashby can explain it.”

Richardson looked at Arabella with an expression of undiluted malevolence. She glanced toward Stross for assistance, but his face held nothing but a studied, beatific calm. The other officers looked on with a mixture of shock and frank curiosity. Trembling, she closed her eyes. It’s no worse than reciting Martian history for Khema, she thought, and began to speak, quoting from Thompson’s Guide to Aerial Navigation. “An aerial drogue is a construction of sturdy, windproof fabric, typically conical or hemispherical, whose open end is fastened to a cable attached to an airship. The drogue is generally propelled downwind by means of a gun, catapult, or other mechanism. The ship can then employ the drogue as an anchor point so as to proceed in a direction nearly perpendicular to the wind.” She swallowed and opened her eyes. All of the faces but Richardson’s had changed to expressions of amused satisfaction. For his part, Richardson ignored Arabella and glared at Stross. “That is the general principle, at least.”

“Nicely done, Ashby,” said Stross, who then nodded pleasantly to Richardson.

With a visible effort, Richardson controlled his anger. “Very well,” he said through gritted teeth, then turned to the boatswain. “Mr. Higgs, you are ordered to requisition a quantity of fabric, and any other necessary materials, from the cargo, in order to create a drogue or drogues sufficient to change the ship’s course and intercept the asteroid Paeonia. Mr. Quinn, you are ordered to assist Mr. Higgs and to keep proper records of all materials requisitioned. Mr. Stross, you are ordered to plot an expeditious course to the asteroid Paeonia, using any available means to do so, and bring the ship directly there forthwith. And Ashby, you are ordered to assist Mr. Stross in his efforts.” He straightened in the air, doing his best to look down his nose at the others present, though as it happened they were all floating above his eye level. “Are your orders clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” they all chorused.

“Come on, lad,” said Stross. “We’ve much to do, and little time to do it in.”

*

As the other officers left the cabin—Richardson favoring Stross with a withering look as he departed—Stross unpinned the chart from the floor and spread it out on Aadim’s desk. While he was doing this, Arabella tended to the captain.

The poor man, unconscious though he might be, seemed distressed by the sounds of the argument. He had thrashed off almost all of his bed-clothes, and beads of sweat had burst out on his wrinkled brow. Arabella gently tucked the captain’s blanket back in place and patted away the sweat with a soft cloth. “All will be well, sir,” she murmured low. “We’ll get Diana to Mars safely, you’ll see.”