Dreadnought (The Clockwork Century 2)

But the women used their feeble glow to begin a careful exploration of the narrow car, which was virtually empty except for the crates and the coffins. If the crates were labeled at all, Mercy couldn’t detect it; and the coffins themselves did not seem to have any identifying features either. There were no plaques detailing the names or ranks of the men within, only

dark leather straps that buckled around each one. Each one also had a rubber seal like the hatch in the roof.

Mercy said, “I’m opening one up. ”

“Wait. ” Miss Clay stopped her, even as her hand went to one of the buckles. “What if it is some kind of contamination?”

“Then we’ll get sick and die. Look, on the floor over there. They’re coupler tools, but you can use one as a crowbar, in a pinch. Or you can see about opening some crates, if you’re getting cold feet. This was your idea, remember?”

“Yes, my idea,” Miss Clay said through chattering teeth.

“Ooh. Hang on,” Mercy stopped herself. “Before you start, let’s stack up a box or two so we can make a hasty exit, if it comes down to it. ”

Miss Clay sighed heavily, as if this were all a great burden, but then agreed. “Very well. That’s the biggest one I see; we can start there. Could you help me? It’s awfully heavy. ”

Mercy obliged, helping to shove the crate under the top portal, and then they man-?hauled a smaller box on top of it, creating a brief but apparently sturdy stairway to the ceiling.

Miss Clay said, “There. Are you satisfied?”

“No. But it’ll have to do. ”

Even though she’d been offered the alternative activity of checking the crates nearby, Theodora hung over Mercy’s shoulder while she unfastened the buckles and straps and reached for the clasps that would open the coffin.

Mercy said, “Before I lift this, you might wanna cover your mouth and nose. ”

Miss Clay said, “It does nothing to offset the odor. ”

“But there may be fumes in there that you don’t want to breathe,” she said, drawing up her apron and holding it up over her face in an impromptu mask. Then she worked her fingers under the clasps and freed them. They lifted with a burp of release.

More outrageous stench wafted up from the coffin, spilling and pooling as if whoever was lying inside had been breathing all this time, his breath had frozen into mist, and this mist was only now free to ooze tendril-?like from the depths of this container. It collected around the women’s feet and coiled about their ankles.

Theodora Clay gave the lid a supplementary heave. It slid away from the coffin’s top, revealing a body lying within.

Mercy wished with all her might for something like the Texian’s small lighted device, but instead she was forced to wait for her eyes to adjust and for the cold fog to clear enough for her to see inside. As the man’s features came into focus, she gasped, clapping her apron’s corner even more tightly against her face.

Miss Clay did not gasp, but she was clearly intrigued. “He looks just awful,” she observed, though what she expected of a man who’d been dead for some weeks and kept in storage, Mercy wasn’t prepared to guess. “Is that . . . ” She pointed at the loll of his neck and the drag of his skin as it began to droop away from his bones. “Is all that normal?”

The nurse’s words were muffled when she replied, “No. No, it’s not normal at all. But I’ve seen it before,” she added.

“Seen what?”

Mercy had had enough. “Close it! Just close the lid and buckle it up again. I don’t need to see any more!”

Theodora Clay frowned, looked back down into the coffin’s interior, and said, “But that’s ridiculous. You haven’t even frisked him for bullet wounds or broken—”

“I said close it!” she nearly shrieked, and toppled backwards away from it.

Perhaps out of surprise, or perhaps only to appease her companion, Miss Clay obliged, drawing the lid back into place and pulling the buckles, seals, and clasps into their original positions. “Well, if you got everything you needed to know from a glance—”

“I did. I saw plenty. That man, he didn’t die in battle. ” Mercy turned away and looked longingly at the stack of crates that led to freedom above, and to the light of a dull gray sky. Then she looked back at the crates that took up the places where the coffins had not been placed. She noted the coupler tools, and she picked one of them up.

“Yes,” her companion said, and selected another tool that might be used as a prybar. “We should also examine these before we leave. ”

Mercy was already at work on the nearest one. Since it was placed near the square of light from the open hatch above, she was relatively certain that there were no markings present to be deciphered. She pressed her long metal instrument into the most obvious seam and wedged her arm down hard. This gesture was greeted with the splitting sound of nails being drawn unwillingly out of boards, and the puff of crisp, fragile sawdust being disturbed.

Miss Clay was having more difficulty with her own crate, so she abandoned it to see what Mercy had turned up. “What on earth are those things?” she asked.

Mercy reached inside and pulled out a glass mason jar filled with a gritty yellow powder. She shook it and the powder moved like a sludge, as if it had been contaminated by damp. She said, “It must be sap. ”