The Clockwork Century: Fiddlehead Part 20

"That ... can't be by accident."

"I shouldn't think so, no."

"It might be nothing," he said, hands tight on the controls. "We haven't seen any other s.h.i.+ps today because the flying conditions are nothing short of awful, but this section of sky is a regular roadway. They have no reason to confront us."

Maria turned the spygla.s.s outward and caught the first s.h.i.+p in the round viewing area. It was small and nondescript, and still too far away to see with any great clarity. But the second s.h.i.+p was larger. She could just make out some lettering on the side, but not quite read what it spelled.

"What do you see?"

"I see..." she said, slowly, "a military s.h.i.+p, I think. It's big, but doesn't look well armed. Cargo, transport, something of that sort. It's CSA gray, at any rate. With ... yes. The Bonnie Blue," she added, meaning a white star in a blue circle-to differentiate it from the Texian insignia, with a white star on brown. "It's one of theirs, or someone's made it look that way."

"You think it's one of the Union decoys?"

"Might be, but if the Maynard device wouldn't fit on something that size, it must be bigger than I'd a.s.sumed." She adjusted her grip on the spygla.s.s and tried the other s.h.i.+p again. "The smaller s.h.i.+p ... it's not marked for the military. I'm not sure it's marked at all." It was gaining on them faster than the CSA s.h.i.+p, but still she saw no identifying flag, insignia, name, or registration numbers.

"That isn't good."

"It might mean pirates. Pirates wouldn't bother a pair of adventurers in a tiny rented craft, not when there are travelers below and big city docks another hour or two out. I do hope it's pirates," she concluded.

"You're a peculiar woman."

"I've had good luck with pirates. I've been told I'm a bit of a pirate myself."

"Let's not talk of luck anymore, shall we? Or pirates, either," Henry pleaded through teeth clenched with chill or nerves. "We've already noticed that luck isn't with us. And as for pirates, you are no such thing. That having been said, you'll have to tell me that story sometime."

"Not much to tell," she lied, keeping one eye glued to the spygla.s.s lens. "My first a.s.signment as a Pinkerton agent had me working with a pirate crew. The captain was a runaway slave named Croggon Hainey. He's the friend of mine that Troost hopes to call in for backup in Was.h.i.+ngton."

"A friend of yours?" Even through the goggles, Maria could see Henry's eyes widen with incredulity. "All right, I'm not a man to judge. But if he's a pirate ... do you think he'll help us, or the Lincolns, or anyone else? Even if Kirby Troost asks him to?"

Still peering through the gla.s.s, she told him, "Yes, I do. He's an adventurous sort, and no fan of Southern politics, as you might expect." She s.h.i.+fted her grip on the device, and directed the conversation back to more pressing matters. "And I wish to G.o.d that he was here with us right now."

"They're still on us?"

"Very much so."

"G.o.ddammit."

"Now, Henry, listen: the smaller craft is bigger than this one, but not so large as its brethren. Perhaps a crew of three. I don't really think it's pirates, but it could be anything-state, federal, or private."

"Do you see any weapons?"

"Not mounted to the exterior. Maybe it's an observation craft? Survey work?" She wasn't sure why she kept making guesses. The s.h.i.+ps would either bother them, or not. "But here they come-another thirty seconds or so until contact. Look innocent, Henry."

"I'll do my level best."

The s.h.i.+ps drew up on either side of the Black Dove. Now Maria could see their faces without the spygla.s.s, so she put it aside. In the course of acting innocent, she waved cheerfully at the nearest s.h.i.+p-the CSA gray with blue and white markings. Without moving her lips, she said to Henry, "Wish I had a flag. I'd wave it."

"You'd look silly," he said back, smiling and joining her in the friendly greetings.

"Silly is usually innocent," she said, and blew the craft a kiss.

Inside the main cabin of the big craft she saw five men: three seated, two standing. All uniformed. None smiling or waving back; not at first. But then the captain gave her a small salute, and the others did as well, before deliberately turning their attention elsewhere. Shortly thereafter, the big s.h.i.+p peeled away from them and sped ahead, leaving just the smaller of the two hovering nearby.

"Can't quite see the little s.h.i.+p," Maria complained, straining to look around Henry's bulkily coated form.

"Shall I cut off my head?"

"Extremes aren't called for. Not just yet."

He forced a smile and released one side of the steering column to chance a quick wave. "Three men," he told her.

"Uniforms?"

"No. And I don't think smiling at them will be very helpful."

"It's usually more helpful than glowering."

"Glowering won't help us either. I think we have trouble."

"Do you see any guns?" she asked. "I didn't."

He sniffed hard, the sniff of a man who can't feel what's going on in his sinuses anymore. "They're inside."

The s.h.i.+p fell back, and then pulled around closer to Maria-who saw that, yes, the men within were heavily armed and did not look very happy to see them. She beamed at them regardless, and waved like she had for the military s.h.i.+p-which was now well ahead of them, keeping its course along the southbound road below.

No one waved back, but one man cranked open a side window, which jutted out from the craft like a fragile gla.s.s wing. He held a megaphone up to his mouth, and leaned out into the clouds.

"You there!" he shouted. "Land your craft immediately!"

Maria pretended she hadn't heard, or hadn't understood. "I'm sorry?" she mouthed, and pointed at her ears. "Too loud! So much wind!"

"Land this craft immediately!" he tried again.

"They want us to land," Henry said, staring straight ahead.

"Thank you, dear, I heard them," she muttered. Then to the craft, as loudly as she could, "I'm very sorry, we can't hear you!" She trusted they'd get the gist.

They did, and it made them angry.

"Land the craft immediately! Right now!" And this time, he brandished a gun in a threatening fas.h.i.+on.

"I've seen bigger!" she yelled.

"Now you're just antagonizing them!" Henry complained.

"Oh, they can't hear a word I'm saying. Can we outrun them?"

He said, "I'm not sure. Maybe. Maybe not."

"Well, we can't just land. They'll kill us both, and that'll be the end of it."

"I thought you liked pirates."

"They aren't pirates," she said with more confidence than before. "They're mercenaries."

While the man at the window gestured with his megaphone and firearm, Maria lifted the spygla.s.s again, to get a better look. Not at the man, but at the crates on the floor behind him. Something was stenciled thereon, and she could just discern the logo. "Baldwin-Felts." She said it like a curse.

"The detective agency? Something like the Pinks?"

"Nothing like the Pinks." She snapped the spygla.s.s shut and stuffed it into her satchel, since that one was the closest. "Oh, all right, something like the Pinks-like a Southern version of the Pinks, with fewer morals, leaner pockets, and no problem with a.s.sa.s.sinating innocent bystanders."

"But people do say similar things about-"

She growled, "When the Pinkertons misbehave, they reflect badly on Chicago. The Baldwin-Felts reflect badly on Virginia."

"I see."

"How much ammunition do you have on you?"

"Look, there's a megaphone in the back. If you can reach it, maybe I can talk some sense into them. I'm a U.S. Marshal, after all. They may think twice about-"

"They won't." She held up one finger to the man in the other dirigible, asking him for just a moment while she rifled through her luggage in search of her gun. "They'll just bury you deeper, and figure no one'll find you 'til it doesn't matter anymore. They've threatened us, they're giving us orders, and they will shoot us down if we don't land ourselves. That's what the man's gun means, Henry. When he waves it around like that, he's telling us he's willing to use it."

"Thank you, ma'am," Henry said, jaw locked tight. "I'm clear on that. I just wonder if we shouldn't have some kind of plan, apart from shooting first."

"I'm a pretty good shot. Better with a ball turret. Pity we seem to be missing one." Using her shoulders to s.h.i.+eld the other s.h.i.+p from what she was doing, she checked her chambers, grabbed a fistful of bullets for future use, and took a deep breath.

"I can't believe they're just ... waiting on you. To see what you're doing."

"Men are trained from birth to wait on the whims of women. Even murderers expect it." She adjusted her goggles, looked back at the unnamed s.h.i.+p, and then at Henry. She leaned in close, so close that her breath warmed his ear. "All right, here's what I'm doing: Our s.h.i.+p is smaller than theirs, we're possibly slower than they are, and we're outnumbered. Our only advantage is surprise, and I intend to cash in that advantage before it's wasted. If you can fly as well as I can shoot, we might make it to our destination-and so far, you're doing a h.e.l.l of a job. So don't stop now."

Before Henry could respond, she looked back over her shoulder. She saw that the man was getting impatient, but the window was still open, and he still hung halfway out of it-anch.o.r.ed by his feet somewhere beyond her view. She slipped her hand around the gun, put her finger on the trigger, and felt its gentle resistance against her glove.

She whipped out the gun.

Aimed in a fraction of a second.

And fired three times in a row, knowing that her shots might spin wild, given the motion of the s.h.i.+p and the air alike; and that she was a good shot, but not a great one, as she might have implied to Henry.

One bullet shattered the window, one bounced harmlessly off the metal casing, and one caught the man in the upper chest, just below his throat. He snapped backwards, clapped his head on the broken window edge, and flipped forward into the aether.

No time to savor the victory. She fired again, this time at their windscreen-hitting it and fracturing it, but not smas.h.i.+ng it outright. The front gla.s.s was thicker; it had to be, to face the elements.

"Aim for their tanks!" Henry screeched, his elbows shaking with the effort of holding the craft in line.

"Not yet! We're too close! Any explosion will take us with it."

One of the other men leaned out the broken window while the captain kept flying-the grim set of his face implying that yes, they, too, were having a struggle of it. The wind was high and wet, and now he was flying with a broken window that snagged the currents and yanked the s.h.i.+p. She hadn't sent them down, but she'd given him more to fight, and that was good. It meant one less person shooting at them.

Four shots volleyed fast, fired by a man in an earflap hat and a very large coat.

Two of them didn't land anywhere important, so far as Maria could tell, but one winged a thruster, and a hard sound hissed against the motor. The last shot plunked into the bag at Maria's feet. She felt the shove of it, and for a moment a.s.sumed the worst-but no, something had stopped it. Hopefully not her extra stockings. She didn't own a third pair.

She aimed the gun his way, but he ducked inside, and then the Black Dove ducked, too. With a hard, belly-bombing lurch it lost so much alt.i.tude that Maria thought something else had been hit, something more important than the fizzling thruster. "Henry!" she shouted.

"Hold on!"

"What are you doing?!"

"Getting away from them!"

"Let's not get away all the way to the ground, please?" she squeaked.

"Not to the ground..." he said, but whatever else he would've added was lost when his full attention was called for at the controls. He pulled up out of the dive in a veering sweep that brought them up again, higher than they'd flown before, to an alt.i.tude where breathing the air felt like chewing on ice.

"Oh G.o.d." Maria coughed, but she held the gun tight and pointed it back at the unmarked s.h.i.+p. She gauged the distance between them and hoped it was near enough to hit, but far enough to escape any fireball that might ensue.

She emptied the last of her chambers and hit the windscreen again, this time puncturing it with a short round of finger-sized holes. But the pilot was unharmed, and she'd come nowhere close to hitting the hydrogen.

Whoever that pilot was, he was good. As good as Henry. Maria could only pray he wasn't better.

The two s.h.i.+ps soared around each other, circling and feinting in a deadly game of chicken, both sides aware that they were careening through portentous weather while strapped to tanks full of a gas so flammable they'd leave a second sun blazing in the sky if one of them lost the match.

Henry wrenched the steering column and kicked a lever by his foot. The s.h.i.+p zoomed upward again, so steeply that Maria's throat clenched shut and her eyes followed close behind. She couldn't look. "Henry, what are you doing!" she demanded, not really wanting to know, but needing to know-clutching the gun, but unable to reload it because then she'd have to take her other hand off the Black Dove's frame. If she did, nothing would be holding her inside but the ridiculous hemp strap, which now struck her as so fragile as to be laughably useless. "They're right behind us! You can't outmaneuver them this way!"

"Not trying to! You have to reload!" he cried, leveling out and letting her catch her breath for a bit.

Her hands were shaking and she could scarcely feel them to guide the bullets. She picked them out of her pocket one by one like seeds from an ap.r.o.n. "What are you doing?" she asked again, fumbling and dropping one, losing sight of it as it tumbled downward.

"Are you loaded?"

"Only ... only three!" She tried to keep the panic from her voice.

"Those tanks are pretty big. Can you hit them in three shots?"

"I think so, but..."

"From underneath?"

She paused. "I think so."

He grinned wildly at her. "The explosion will go up, so we'll go under. Hang on to your hat!" he roared, and dropped the Black Dove nose-down. The engine gurgled and fought, but didn't fail, despite the near free fall.

Maria laughed the unhinged cackle of a lunatic when she realized her hat was long gone, so all she had to clutch was her gun and this s.h.i.+p. So she didn't fall out as she leaned, squinted through her goggles, and aimed.

The unmarked s.h.i.+p loomed above her, its tanks dangling low and inviting on the sides. She only needed to hit one, but she had to hit it square, and she was falling, falling, falling ... and had the engine cut out? She couldn't tell. There was nothing in her ears but the rush of the drop. The sky was huge above her, and the other s.h.i.+p was coming after them, but it was coming too slow as it turned to dive in their wake. Five more seconds and the angle would be wrong.

She fired.