Ganymede (The Clockwork Century 3)

“Fine for now,” Wallace told him. “We won’t need to worry about circulating it for another half hour. ”

“Somebody keep an eye on a clock. ”

Mumler said, “That’ll be me. I’ve got my dad’s watch. It’s as precise as any nautical piece. ”

“It’d better be. By the time we know we have a problem, it’ll be too late—that’s what Rucker said. ”

“And he’s right. But we could go closer to an hour without having to worry about it. ”

“Glad to hear it,” the captain said. He flinched as a submerged tree trunk careened toward t

he window, hit it, and ricocheted away. “Jesus. ”

“The window will hold,” promised Mumler. “Don’t worry about that. Just keep us moving. ”

Cly urged the pedals in accordance with the flow, his hands on the levers to manage their rise and fall; Fang worked the other set of controls, the ones that moved the ship from side to side. Between them, Ganymede’s trip downriver was not smooth or even graceful, but it was steady, and they neither sank too far nor rose too high.

Out of the corner of Cly’s eye, he watched his engineer go green around the gills, and prayed the man wouldn’t vomit … even as he was forced to admit that the submarine was giving them one hell of a wild ride. “Troost?” he called.

“Yes … Captain?”

“You still with us over there?”

“Still here, sir. Hey, Mumler, Early—I’ve got an idea for an improvement, for the next model. ”

Deaderick asked, “What would that be?”

“Buckets. ”

“Huey,” said the captain. “How’s our escort?”

“Sticking with us, sir. Some of them better than others. The little boats with the little motors are doing best, them and the ones with the big fans. ”

“Those guys have poles, don’t they?”

“They do, Captain. But in this current, with all this movement … I don’t know. I hope they can keep up. ”

Cly said, “When we stop at—what was that, Jackson Street?—to pick up Josephine and whoever she brings along, we can have a quick conference with the topside men and see how they’re doing. ”

The Ganymede continued half-carried, half-piloted farther down the wide, muddy ribbon of river. Mostly she stayed away from debris, and mostly they stayed satisfactorily submerged, bobbing above the surface only once, and then diving again immediately. No one saw them, though, or if anyone did, no one knew what it was, and no one was alarmed.

Before long—and much sooner than Cly had expected—a loud series of taps on Ganymede’s top announced that the time had come to begin angling for the shore, for the hidden dock at Fort Jackson.

“Make for the north bank,” Mumler said, and he called out some directional specifics.

“I’m on it,” Cly told him. “Fang?”

Fang nodded.

“All right. Here we go. Let’s see how well this thing steers when we’re not quite running with the current, eh?”

As it turned out, Ganymede steered with no great ease—but she responded sufficiently to allow Cly to bring the craft up against the dock with a lot of swearing, a few faltering attempts, and finally, success that broke only one pier piling and splintered a second one. The whole crew considered it a victory that no one had died and no one onshore had been knocked into the river.

As the men outside tethered the vehicle into position, everyone within exhaled deep breaths and stood. An all-clear sounded above, and Houjin scrambled up the ladder to open the hatch. “Hi!” he announced.

“Hi!” responded Rucker Little. “Everyone all right down there?”

“Everybody’s fine,” Deaderick said in a voice just louder than the one he usually used for speaking. This was not the time to shout.