Arabella of Mars(54)
Arabella could only hope that his trust in her was well founded.
13
DROGUES
Arabella was giving the captain his water when a bell sounded, indicating that Aadim’s calculations were complete. She took a slate and chalk and recorded a series of numbers from the dials on the front of his cabinet, double-checking her work because there were many more figures than usual. She then consulted a book of tables—this part was something she knew the captain would have done from memory—and wrote down the sailing order and navigation points required to implement the course. When she was done with that she again double-checked her work, then copied it out quickly but neatly on a sheet of vellum.
As she sanded and blotted the sheet, she was forced to admit that she had only a theoretical understanding of how this plan would be implemented. As an airman, her skills were limited to hauling on a rope when instructed; as a navigator, she was keenly aware of the great size of the field of navigation and the tiny proportion her own command of it encompassed. It was as though she knew how to lay out the major blocks of color that made up a portrait, and understood the general principle of two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but must rely upon others to execute the actual brush strokes.
She was deeply concerned about Richardson’s abilities in this area. The man was plainly more interested in maintaining his own authority than he was in the actual running of the ship. The other officers, and the men who reported to them, were doing their best to work within the constraints that the acting captain laid upon them, but she feared that at some point their practical knowledge and Richardson’s orders would collide. Arabella hoped that would not occur in the middle of a difficult navigational maneuver.
She gently laid a hand on the captain’s shoulder before leaving the cabin. He looked even more thin and pale than he had even that morning. Despite her best attentions, and the nourishing broth that the surgeon fed him several times a day from a kid-leather squeeze bag, he seemed to be fading rapidly. “The head wound is healing well,” the surgeon had said. “I’ve seen men recover from worse. But whether or not he regains his senses … that’s in the Lord’s hands.”
Fighting to keep the tears from her eyes, Arabella silently pledged to do every thing in her power to keep the ship and crew alive until he returned to his proper place on the quarterdeck.
*
She emerged on deck to a scene that would have been humorous in its domesticity, had not the situation been so perilous. Dozens of airmen, rough-handed muscular men, worked closely and diligently with needle and thread, plying their needles through heaps of shining white linen tablecloths instead of the usual sails or shore-going clothes. Other men were employed in bending canes of rattan into hoops and pounding out brass grommets. And the ship’s carpenter, assisted by two of the most senior airmen, was busily cursing over a strange assemblage of wood, iron, and cordage.
“Have you the sailing order?” Stross called out from where he hung by the rail in close conference with the purser.
“Aye, sir,” Arabella replied, and with a kick propelled herself across the deck to hand him the paper. He looked it over with a skeptical eye. “It’ll be close,” he muttered. “Very close.” He tapped the page. “If that cross-wind isn’t exactly where the charts say, we might miss the asteroid completely.”
Arabella floated at attention, unable to reassure Stross. Although she had confidence in Aadim’s calculations and her own transcriptions, she had no idea how practical the resulting course might be.
Stross peered hard at the paper, then shook his head. “We’ll need five drogues, lads,” he called out, “not four!”
The men with the needles groaned at this new intelligence, but the purser cried out as though in pain. “Lord’s sake!” he said. “At this rate we’ll go into the red for sure!”
“Better that than dead,” the sailing-master replied. He folded the paper and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Ashby, can you ply a needle?”
“Aye, sir,” she admitted. Though she despised needlework, thanks to her mother she had considerable experience with it.
“Report to Mr. Higgs, then, and be sure to make every stitch tight!”
“Aye, sir.” But, despite the direct order, she did not leap to comply, finding it very difficult to tear her gaze from the great cabin’s door.
Stross must have seen her reluctance, because he reassured her, “The captain will get along without you for a few hours.” Then he pursed his lips and shook his head. “If it’s much longer than that … well then, it won’t really matter.”
*
Arabella was somewhat embarrassed to discover that many of the men were both faster and tidier with needle and thread than she was. Her mother, she knew, would be terribly disappointed in her. She soon shook off this attitude, though, and concentrated her efforts on working as rapidly as possible. Stross and the other officers continually admonished them to work faster, faster, for they had only a few hours until the current carried them irrevocably past the asteroid. But at the same time, they must be sure to make the seams as strong as possible, for the drogue would bear the entire weight of the ship.
Richardson, she noted, remained imperiously on the quarterdeck, looking out over the work but not taking any part in it.
*
Soon they had the first of the drogues completed. A great cone of white linen, its open base was formed of a ten-foot circular loop of bent rattan, and it measured twenty-five feet from base to tip. Two of the topmen quickly lashed together a rope harness to attach it to a sturdy cable, the other end of which they carried below.