Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 110

"Is it so obvious?"

"To me," Jack said. He took the evening coat out of Sebastien's hands, set it aside, and began untying Sebastien's necktie and unb.u.t.toning his collar. "You'll want a fresh s.h.i.+rt."

"Yes, dear," Sebastien said, and suffered himself to be dressed like a girl's paper doll. "Miss Meadows knows, Jack."

Jack paused in his work and looked up. He would never be a tall man, but he was a man, and Sebastien was never more disinclined to forget it than when Jack primped into his fey, adolescent persona. "Isn't that the point of all this?" A fluid, dismissive wave. "I'm of age, if anyone asks. And don't I remember you making me wait until I was. How many times did I offer before I turned sixteen?"

"One hundred and thirty-one," Sebastien said. "And no. I mean she's in the club."

"What about the matinees?" Jack stepped back, Sebastien's collar draped limp as a dead snake over his hand.

"Not of the blood." He let it hang until Jack's frown deepened from a pin scratch to a furrow. "An admirer."

"Oh, no you don't," Jack muttered. He tossed the collar aside and reached out, knotting his hands in Sebastien's hair. "Just because I've got to give you back to whatever court you a.s.semble in New Amsterdam, Sebastien, doesn't mean this trip isn't mine. You promised."

And what would his blood brothers think, Sebastien wondered, if they could see him now, pinned down and soundly kissed by a courtesan two-thirds his size?

They would think he was eccentric, of course, and too lenient with his pets.

But Sebastien was old enough to be excused a certain measure of eccentricity. And he'd long ago realized he preferred the mayfly society of humans to that of the blood. The blood took everything so seriously, as if they pa.s.sed into that stage of human aging when mortals realized that the world turned like a wheel, and then through it, to a place where the natural cycles of success and catastrophe must be arrested. Before they could inconvenienceor worse, annoyanyone.

Jack stopped kissing him before he'd rumpled his evening clothes, but after Sebastien's teethsharpening in reactionhad furthered their earlier damage to his own lips and gums. Fortunately, he healed fast.

Jack wouldn't have. And it was mad of him to tempt Sebastien so soon after a feeding; Sebastien could control himself, andbarring disasterhe wouldn't need more until they were well grounded in New Amsterdam. But Sebastien also needed far more than Jack had to give. Which was why those of the blood who did not care to hunt for their suppers had courts and courtesans, and not simply a favorite or two. A pint a month, any healthy adult could spare. The same twice a week was slow deatheven though the blood, in Sebastien's considered opinion, was merely a metaphor for something more... exalted.

It warmed Sebastien as thoroughly as that mouthful of blood would have, though, to see Jack's jealousy.

Chapter VI.

Dinner pa.s.sed uneventfully. Jack demonstrated a certain hesitancy in circ.u.mventing the pork roast, butgiven two lunch.e.s.h.e extemporized around the fish and salad courses and, with the addition of Sebastien's dessert to his own, made a satisfactory supper. Sebastien disarrayed his food artfully to produce the illusion of dining, a sleight of hand that had served him well over the years.

After dining, the ladies excused themselves before the men adjourned to the smoking room. Sebastien took advantage of the exodus to plead a headache and an aversion to cigars and make his own escape. If Sebastien ventured into the smoking room, he'd be smelling stale tobacco for days. Jack, who numbered cigars among his bad habits as well as brandyquite the young rakeh.e.l.l, he was growing into, and Sebastien had no-one to blame but himselfwould report if anything interesting transpired.

Sebastien had fairer prey.

The pa.s.senger room at the head of the stairs was the least desirable, and on an airs.h.i.+p as unpeopled as the Hans Glucker, it was understandably deserted. Sebastien slipped inside, leaving the light fixture shrouded, and settled on the lower bunk to wait.

A humanor even a younger bloodmight have brought reading material, something with which to while away the hours. Sebastien simply closed his eyes in the dark, leaned his shoulder on the bedpost, and listened to the Hans Glucker drift.

An airs.h.i.+p was no more silent in her pa.s.sage than a sailing vessel. Through the deck, Sebastien could feel the thrum of engines, the almost-subliminal vibration of the cables containing the gas bags within the lifting body, the way the giant aircraft moved in response to the wind plucking at its control cabin and fabric skin. He listened to the s.h.i.+p in the night, and let his mind wander. It was a kind of meditation, and sometimes it helped him uncover surprising truths.

Now, it led him back to Mme. Pontchartrain's cabin, and the disarrayed papers, and the amended logbook. But those items refused to resolve into a pattern, no matter how many angles he turned them to or stared at them from. He found himself instead musing on Mrs. Leatherby, and her blatant attempt to feed him information. Probably accurate information, as it happened. But he was not blind to the manipulation.

A step on the stair and the swish of a woman's skirt brought him from his reverie. A small woman, by the weight of her footfall, and so either Mrs. Smith or Mlle. LeClere. And while he would have been happier to see Mrs. Smithhe was beginning to give some serious thought to wooing her; he would need friends and courtesans in Americahe hoped it was, at last, Mlle. LeClere.

Alone.

He smoothed his hair with both hands, the mirror no use to him, and stepped into the corridor. And almost into the young Frenchwoman's arms.

She gave a startled squeak and might have toppled down the stairs if he hadn't caught her wrist and landed her. Instead she tottered and collapsed forward into his arms; he took two quick steps back to set her at arm's length. "Mademoiselle," he said. "Forgive me. Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said, and shrugged his hands off. "I'll just"

"Not at all." He stepped aside, and then fell in beside her when she advanced. "I've been meaning to speak to you alone."

"That's hardly seemly, monsieur." She stepped faster, but he kept up with ease.

"I did not think you the sort of young lady who concerned herself with appearances," he countered. The reached the cabin she had until recently shared with Mme. Pontchartrain, and Mlle. LeClere moved as if to push Sebastien aside. He caught her elbow and turned her.

"Monsieur," she said. "I will shout."

"And I will tell the Captain that you lied about where you were last night."

She held herself stiff for a moment, her chin lifted, her lips pressed suddenly thin. And then, abruptly, she deflated, sagging inside the confines of her corset. "d.a.m.n you," she whispered. "What do you want?"

"Mademoiselle," Sebastien answered, "we all have secrets. I wish only to discover what became of your chaperone. Will you tell me where you were last night?"

"With Oczkar," she said, hopelessly. "I knew Mme. Pontchartrain had a taste for laudanum, you see, and sometimes she did not even remove her clothes of an evening, when she had indulged"

"And your absence would not wake her from her dreams."

"Indeed," she said, hopelessly. "But I did not kill her. I did not even provide the drug"

"Hush," Sebastien said. He brushed her cheek with cool fingers. "You do not need to justify yourself to me."

"Was she lying?" Jack asked, in the darkness.

"I don't believe so." Sebastien did not sleep. But he occupied his pajamas nonetheless, and lay on Jack's bunk beside him, listening to Jack breathe, inches away in the quiet darkness. "So what do we know, then?"

"That we can cross Korvin and LeClere off our list of suspects." Jack spoke very softly, just for Sebastien's ears, both of them aware of Mrs. Smith sleeping peacefully on the other side of the doped fabric wall. Faintly, distantly, Sebastien could hear Hollis Leatherby snoring.

"Unless they did it together."

"Then no-one has an alibi."

"Not even you."

"Alas," Jack said. He s.h.i.+fted under the covers, leaning his head on Sebastien's shoulder. "We know Mrs. Smith is an inveterate eavesdropper. We know Captain Hoakor somebody feigning his handwritingmade an inconsistent entry in the logbook. We know Mme. Pontchartrain disappeared between drinks and breakfast. We can speculate that Korvin and Meadows had some sort of prior arrangement to travel together, or that Corvin and LeClere didaside from the tour group, I mean. Five colonials and one European, that's a bit odd, isn't it? Is that something you can inquire after with Mrs. Smith?"

"I thought you didn't approve of Mrs. Smith."

"She's just your type," Jack said, feigning placidity. "And I know very well that we can't get along in America, just the two of us, without friends."

"You are a practical soul, dear boy," Sebastien said, and turned to kiss Jack's forehead. "We also know that Beatrice Leatherby has some agenda that involves incriminating Korvin."

"Or Mademoiselle LeClere."

"Just so. Extending that last point, we know that there is some mysterious tension between the Leatherbys and the other pa.s.sengers. We know Korvin ur may very well be something other than he seems, but that he is not of the blood."

"We know Miss Meadows knows that you are." Sebastien could hear Jack's frown in his voice.

"And we know that this dirigible is currently host to any number of unsavory relations.h.i.+ps."

"Is that so?" Jack asked, propping himself on his elbows, his silhouette barely visible in the dim light that slipped around the edges of the lampshade.

"Unfortunately," Sebastien answered, sitting up, "it appears to be a motif. You should sleep, Jack."

Jack caught his wrist. "Madame's papers appeared to have been riffled. Hurriedly. But you said no one but she and Mlle. LeClere had been in the cabin."

Sebastien nodded. "I did, didn't I? I wonder if I could have been mistaken."

"Anise oil confuses bloodhounds," Jack said, slyly.

Sebastien snorted.

"We also now know that Madame Pontchartrain was an opium addict."

"Such harsh terms for a little genteel laudanum use." And then Sebastien stopped, freed his right hand, and used it to stroke Jack's curls, thoughtfully. "Jack, when we searched Madame Pontchartrain's room"

Jack stiffened. "No laudanum bottle."

"Indeed," Sebastien answered. "And isn't that a curious thing?"

Chapter VII.

Long before first light, when Jack was sleeping soundly, Sebastien dressed and slipped from the cabin. This time, the lack of doors that locked and fastened abetted him. He paused in the corridor, listening for activity, and heard only even breathing and faint snores. Slowly, he descended the stairs, which neither creaked nor settled under his weight, and paused at the bottom landing.

Pretend you are a murderer, Sebastien thought, and permitted himself a smile he would never have worn around a mortal, friend or foe. It even felt unpleasant on his face.

If I wanted to murder someone, though No. He turned back, and regarded the stairs, lit green by emergency lights. Sebastien was considerably stronger and more agile than a human man, and he could not have maneuvered even a small unconscious woman down those stairs without waking the s.h.i.+p. The forward stairs were no betterand closer to the occupied sleeping chambers. If she had come this way, she had not been dragged.

Which meant that if Mme. Pontchartrain had not gone up, into the airframeand the search there had revealed no signthen, barring sorcery, she had come down under her own power.

And, also barring sorcery, Mlle. LeClere had lied again, because if she had left Mme. Pontchartrain drugged insensate, then there was no way Mme. Pontchartrain could have gotten down these stairs.

In the absence of a Crown Investigator or a Zaubererdetektiv, Sebastien found he must reluctantly shelve the idea of sorceryat least until they made landfall in New Amsterdam. Where, it happened, there was a Detective Crown Investigator, the most notorious of the scant three the British-American colonies boasted.

Under German law, while he was no more welcome in most men's houses than... than Mrs. Zhang and Mr. Cui, he was not proscribed. In British America, however, the blood were outlawed. Those Crown rules had not been generally enforced since the seventeenth century, but were kept on the books for convenience's sake in troublesome cases.

And so, it would be entirely best for Sebastien to have this mystery resolved by the time DCI Garrett arrived on the sceneor the scene, as the case might be, arrived in her jurisdiction.

So it had better not be sorcery, hadn't it?

He paused. Of course, there was one very easy way to tell if it potentially could be sorcery. And that could be addressed in the morning. In the meantime, however Sebastien heard crisply military footsteps, and started forward. A few steps took him around the corner, and into the path of the watch officer. Tonight, it was the first mate, who tipped his hat and kept on walking, obviously accustomed to sleepless pa.s.sengers.

"Guten Morgen," he said, the first mate echoing his words. As he pa.s.sed, Sebastien checked his watch. Three oh eight. "Herr Pfrommer?"

The first mate checked his stride and turned back. "Ja, mein Herr?"

Briefly, Sebastien outlined what he proposed, and when it seemed as if the officer would protest, held up his hand. "Please check with the captain," he said. "I will abide by his decision."

Herr Pfrommer clicked his heels, a tradition Sebastien had considered happily buried until that moment, and carried on with his rounds. And Sebastien sighed and took himself down to the control cabin before the officer returned, or the sun came up.

The Hans Glucker didn't have a hanging gondola, as a smaller dirigible might. Most of its pa.s.senger and crew facilities were inside the airframe, with only a small control cabin protruding underneath the nose of the s.h.i.+p. Sebastien walked forward past the salon and smoking room, down the white-walled corridor which provided access to the washrooms, crew quarters, and the galley by means of German-labeled doors. The hum of the engines was louder, here. They extended from either side of the s.h.i.+p on sets of pontoons, and one of the main struts ran through behind the forward door that would have brought him into the control cabin.

It was locked, of course.

Fortunately, among all his other skills, Jack could pick a lock. And it was Sebastien who taught him.

Sebastien unpinned his cravatthe jewel was set in gold, but the stick pin itself was steeland with its offices and those of a bit of wire, he managed the lock by touch in seconds. He opened the door and let himself through, and proceeded down a short flight of stairs.

The pilot didn't turn. He spoke, thoughin German, of course. "You're back very soon, Herr Pfrommer."

"I am not Herr Pfrommer," Sebastien said, and when the pilot started and turned, producing a weapon, Sebastien stood with both hands raised and open, having dropped wire and pin into his pocket. "I am sorry. The door was open, and I"

"You are investigating?"

"Yes." Sebastien smiled. "How many pilots are on this s.h.i.+p, sir?"

"Two," he answered. He checked his controls and locked them in position, and then turned back to Sebastien.

"Heel and toe watches?" Twelve hours on and twelve off, that meant. A grueling schedule.

"Yes, mein Herr."

"So it was not you to whom my ward spoke this afternoon."

"I went to my bunk at six" the pilot began, and then pressed his lips together. "What did your young man tell you about Franz?"

"Just that he was charming," Sebastien lied, taking the opportunity to survey the control cabin. It was small, and while there was an exit door, it was clearly visible from the pilot's position. "And that he gave Jack a tour of the control cabin. Tell me, mein Herr, did you leave your post at all last night?"

"Only to visit the washroom," the pilot said. "And for my coffee and dinner breaks. The officer of the watch takes control during that time." He checked his watcha wrist.w.a.tch, favored by aviators, rather than a pocket watch. "I'll take my second break as soon as the first mate returns from his rounds, in fact. My relief arrives at six hundred hours."

"Your dinner break is at three hundred."

"Three twenty," the pilot corrected.