Imprudence (The Custard Protocol #2)(54)
Cairo.
What had caught the deckling’s attention wasn’t Cairo, but beyond, to the starboard side where the famous pyramids rose up. Three brown angled shadows stood against the brightness of the desert sands – large and wide, tall and narrow, and a little one further away. How big they must be to stand out so when buildings and trees remained indistinct blurs!
“A true feat of engineering.” Quesnel’s voice was reverent.
The Spotted Custard did not drift any closer, for Percy was de-puffing them into Cairo and no nearer to the pyramids. Eventually they tore their eyes away to look at the city.
The vegetation around the river gave way reluctantly to a vast network of buildings both ancient and modern, mostly sandstone with some marble. Trees permeated throughout, particularly near the river and in prescribed city parks. There were several colossal yellow buildings with thick walls and forbidding auras – fortresses. Dotted about were graceful onion-shaped spires of mosques. The city was criss-crossed by tracks, black spidery lines over sand, dirt, and brick. Tracks in the sky, too, sliding up to unbelievably tall obelisks for dirigible shipping and receiving. Airships of various kinds were sunk over the Nile, taking on water, mixing with a river already crowded by boats and rafts. The closer they got, the more they could see of industry. A smattering of soot lay over everything and a haze lurked above the city – the dirty consequence of technological achievement.
The mooring obelisks were carved of exotic stone, black basalt, white marble, red rhyolite, and something green Rue couldn’t identify. They were ringed and notched at the top with posts, serving dirigibles, hot air balloons, ornithopters, and other, weirder sky boats. Some were used by only one airship, while others were surrounded by clusters of patchwork and striped balloons, like enormous bouquets of fat painted hyacinth bulbs.
Lady Maccon pointed at a cluster. “Nomadic desert tribes. Twenty years ago they were called Drifters. They may still use the name. Cousins to the Bedouin, they took to the skies long ago.”
“They’re beautiful. For the first time, my darling Custard actually fits right in.” Rue was delighted. The Spotted Custard’s cheerful red balloon with its big black spots was in good company in Cairo. In London, airships tended to be more sombre in appearance.
Percy, at the helm on the opposite end of the ship, had to yell to get Rue’s attention. “How do we know where to tether?”
At which juncture, he came under attack from a native bird.
“Pigeon!” Rue ran from the forecastle, dashed across the main deck, hoisted her skirts, and leapt up to the quarterdeck, parasol swinging. “Get it!” Rue had a horror of pigeons.
But this particular bird behaved unlike any she had ever met. It landed without fear right next to Percy in the navigation pit. At rest, it was clearly not a pigeon at all, nor was it made of flesh. It was made of metal. And mechanical. And utterly forbidden.
Everyone on board stared at it with mouths agape.
Quesnel followed Rue, although without parasol brandishment, coming to stand next to her, looking up at the creature on their poop deck.
His face was white in shock. “Is that a… mechanimal?”
Lady Maccon came after.
“I thought they were prescribed.” Primrose joined them.
“They are!” Rue and her mother spoke at the same time.
Percy was unperturbed. He looked at the bird as if a tropical bug or small child had approached him, which is to say, without much interest or intent to engage.
“Percival,” said Lady Maccon in a low frightened voice, “come away from there this instant. Those things are explosive.”
Rue panicked. “Get it off my ship!”
Prim clutched her hands together. “Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Didn’t they destroy most of London half a century ago?”
Lady Maccon remained calm. “That’s the rumour.”
Quesnel’s face stayed incandescently enthralled. “To think, in my lifetime! I got to see a mechanimal, in person.”
The metal bird cocked its head at them and let out a peep noise. It burst the ear socket it was so high.
Percy objected. “Ouch. Stop that. What do you want?”
The mechanimal twitched and peeped again.
Then it threw its little beak back and its whole head rolled inside out and converted to a kind of morning glory flower shape, like a hearing trumpet. A human voice emerged, as if from one of those newfangled gramophones.
It spoke a short stream in some foreign tongue, then in French, and finally in English. “Unregistered airships report to the Ministries of Public Works Plus War, at the Customs and Tariff Obelisk.” It then proceed on to various other languages before converting its head back to that of a bird and taking flight, returning the way it had come.
“Nasty piece of work.” Rue felt it was one step removed from a pigeon.
Percy began twiddling dials. “Seemed pleasant enough. Now we know what to do.”
“Oh yes? And where is this Ministries of Public Works Plus War?”
Primrose brightened. “Let me consult my Baedeker’s.” She trotted off to her room to retrieve the obligatory red leather travel guide.
Rue hated to do it but she shouted after her friend, “Prim, you might rouse Miss Sekhmet while you’re there.”
Primrose paused, turned, and gave Rue a nasty look.
Rue tried to look contrite. “We might need her interpretive skills.”