Ganymede (The Clockwork Century 3)

“Looks like it,” Cly confirmed.

“Then I’ll close up the hatch and call us ready to set sail. Or set screws, or start charges, or whatever this thing does. Goddamn,” he grunted, as he turned the wheel to seal them all inside. “They’ll need to invent a whole new lingo for boats like this. ”

Josephine stood in front of the window beside her brother. She appeared to be transfixed by the scenery, dark, swirling, and largely undecipherable though it was. “I’m sure sailors the world over will be up to the task. Or airmen,” she amended the sentiment, flashing Cly a look of honest gratitude that gave him a pang of guilt.

He already knew that this wasn’t about to go as smoothly as she’d hoped. He didn’t have any intention of telling her while there was still some trouble she could make about it, and he didn’t yet know how Deaderick or Mumler would handle the news that their detour at the canal would be more extensive than expected, so he didn’t say anything about it yet.

For the moment, though, he didn’t have to. He only had to get Ganymede back into the river and as far as the canal. What he’d told Josephine off the top of his head was correct: It couldn’t go much farther than the canal without needing its air circulated anyway, so it was a good excuse to pull over when the right place was located.

When all was in order once more, the craft shoved off, its propulsion screws churning at the rear, and the ballasting fins and pumps all working in accordance with the hands and feet of Cly and Fang. Troost called out degrees and directions, helping to adjust their course. Mumler kept an eye on his watch, Houjin kept his eyes plastered to the visor scope, and Josephine kept an eye on her brother—who watched his own reflection in the window, since there was little to be seen on the other side of it except for the black vortex of the river at night.

This time the launch was easier, and better controlled. Ganymede dipped hard only once, and swung left to right like a dog shaking its head for only a few seconds before Fang was able to steady it.

Josephine gasped and clutched at the wall, then sat down along it, only to stand again when the peril was past.

“It was worse the first time,” Troost assured her. A small burp escaped his lips, but whatever else was tempted to come up stayed down.

“You’ve got it under control now, though, don’t you?” Anxiously she regarded Cly, who nodded and cocked his head toward Fang, who did the same.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Josephine!” Houjin chirped. “They’re getting the hang of it!”

In approximately half an hour, much to Cly’s relief on several levels, the offshoot to the canal came within spotting distance on Houjin’s scope. He announced, “Port Sulphur is dead ahead, up on the right. ”

“Veer eight degrees south,” Troost called.

As if she already suspected something was amiss, Josephine said, “Wait. But we decided we weren’t taking the canal. There’s too much trouble out at the bay. We’d already decided. ”

Cly almost fell into a very old pattern of explaining that we had not decided anything; she had decided something, and that was not the same as a consensus. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “We have to run the air tube up, Josie. May as well pull over where it’s safe, or safer than any old spot along the river. ”

A series of taps up topside announced that their escorts either hadn’t gotten the message about Josephine’s decision, or they were prepared to ignore it in favor of a good docking spot. Either way, the tapping against the hull by the poling boaters backed up Cly’s assertion that they were, in fact, stopping.

“I don’t like this,” she said.

“Sorry. But I like having fresh air to breathe, and the rest of these fellows do, too. We’re stopping, Josie. We’re putting up the air hose, and we’re freshening up, and then we’re headed back out again. I’ll get you to the Gulf, I swear to God. But you’re going to have to trust me, just this once. ”

Fourteen

Josephine fumed to herself about the stopping point, but there was little to be done about it. The captain had made his decision, and the crew was willing to go along with it; so nothing she could add or argue would mean anything to any of them.

Never mind that this was her operation to start with. She was the one who’d arranged it, top to bottom. He had no right to overrule her.

It wasn’t that Cly was wrong. He was absolutely correct, and the air should be circulated on the half hour, as prescribed by the engineers. It was his insistence on being in charge, and the infuriating way that this stop—this one hidden docking spot, of all the hidden docking spots on the full expanse of the Mississippi—was the one closest to the greatest threat.

Josephine hated few things more than changing a set plan, and her plan had changed all over the place. No one had asked her if she thought a stop at the canal was a good idea. And now no one would listen when she told them there were better places, safer places, and that their change of plan must absolutely be reversed for the sake of the entire operation.

But what would she know, anyway? She was only the one who ought to be in charge.

While the men behind her unhitched the air hose and sent it chattering on the reel up through the water and into the open air, she climbed the ladder in order to take her foul mood outside, rather than risk being accused of being difficult, or in the way. The first man to broach either of those ideas would find himself missing teeth.

She wrenched the hatch’s wheel, and her ears popped when the seal did. She poked her head out and immediately spotted Rucker Little, who had scrambled over to Ganymede first. He stood knee-deep in the water, hanging off the rotted and disused pier while preparing to knock upon the hull to get the attention of those inside.

“Everything still good in there?”

“Sure,” she said. “They’re running the air tubes up now, and starting the generator. ”

Behind her, something loud but far away cracked—and a warm yellow light bloomed in the distance. When she turned to get a better look, the glow of the far-off explosion revealed a small fleet of airships above the bay.

Even from this far away, Josephine could see that it was a motley, unofficial crew of ne’er-do-wells and pirates who occupied much of the sky. Their ships were not the uniform, predictable shapes of the Texian air brigades. The pirate