Competence Page 3

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Bad Case of the Dropsies

  Professor Percival Tunstell was not having a particularly pleasant evening. First there was the helium leak. Then there was being unable to repair the leak - not that that was his problem, he was navigation, not repairs. Then there was having to leave his sister behind and now, well, this.

  “Percy! We are headed straight for the ocean!”

  “Yes, Rue, we are sinking. And Singapore is an island. You know, surrounded by water.”

  “Well, stop it! I can’t swim.”

  “Did you miss the fact that we are sinking? I rather think that is something for you to stop, Captain.”

  “Well, steer us towards land at least. Isn’t that land there?”

  Percy did not wish to be condescending (well, to be fair he did wish it, he was excellent at condescension) but he could hardly take the time to explain to his extremely aggravating captain how aeronautics and wind dynamics worked.

  “We have caught an offshore breeze, which means, unsurprisingly, that it is taking us offshore, Rue.”

  “So, catch a different breeze.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Percy!”

  “Auribus teneo lupum.”

  “No Latin! You know I can’t abide Latin during unsustainable situations!”

  “Rue.” Percy turned on her. “We catch breezes by going up or down. Up or down, Rue. Without vertical movement options, we thus have no choice on lateral direction. We are sinking, and therefore we are drifting as the wind wills it. Right now I am simply trying to keep us from landing directly inside a major shipping lane. While it would improve our chances of being rescued, the Spotted Custard would likely be destroyed by a large boat. If we can at least make for calmer waters, we might float for long enough to be rescued.”

  Rue looked genuinely scared at last. Her pretty face paled as much as her tan complexion allowed, and her odd yellow eyes dilated. “Do we float on water?”

  Percy shrugged - he knew how to swim. I suppose I’ll have to rescue her if it comes to that. I wonder if there are any of those handy Bubbles Instant Flotation Apparatuses lying about. He went back to the task at hand. “I think so. Never tried it. Ask Mr Lefoux, he was part of the design team. Wasn’t he?”

  Rue picked up the speaking tube and buzzed engineering.

  “What!” Percy heard a sharp but deep female voice on the other end.

  Bugger, he thought, but didn’t say.

  “Aggie, get me Quesnel.”

  Aggie, on the other end of the tube down in the boiler room, muttered a string of insults, or curses or complaints, that Percy couldn’t focus on interpreting even if he wanted to. They seemed to have caught some new cross-wind and there was a chance, just a chance, he could ride it back towards shore.

  “I don’t care how busy he is, this is important!”

  Tentatively Percy depuffed, sinking them with a lurch faster downwards, so as to nest the collapsing balloon inside the new breeze. It caught them and dragged them back towards Singapore and away from all those huge busy steamers below.

  “Fine, well, please ask him if we float on water. Yes, I know you float on water, woman. No one is more filled with oil than you. No, I know that I’m funny. Oh, for goodness’ sake!”

  Rue slammed down the tube and glared at Percy, face flushed. “That woman will be the death of me. Quesnel seems to think that yes, we might float, at least for a bit. But we aren’t watertight due to the lower hatches, and if the balloon collapses entirely it will probably tilt us over. The mast and rudder are for aether use, not water.”

  Percy nodded but did not verbally acknowledge this information. He’d nothing intelligent to add to these details, so he said nothing. A policy he wished the world in general would obey. He bit his lip in concentration, focused on the one breeze he’d managed to find, hoping it didn’t peter out.

  There was a wide expanse of muddy tropical beach just ahead of them. It looked promising, and at least uninhabited.

  He depuffed them again.

  The Spotted Custard couldn’t really land either. The airship wasn’t made to go to ground any more than she was made to float on water. The gondola might shatter or break. He couldn’t fill the balloon with air either - that might push the last of the helium out the as-yet untraced leak.

  But Percy figured it would be safer for everyone if, when they did crash, they crashed on a nice soft beach, so that’s what he aimed for.

  Primrose and Tasherit had a respectable meal at their hotel. Tasherit even minded her manners, much to Prim’s relief. There had been a time, when the werecat first joined the crew, that she would pick at meat with her fish knife, or wildly stab at rolling fruit.

  Prim shuddered at the memory of their first (and only) whole roasted goose with the werecat at table. The woman had actually plucked up a leg and gnawed on it! Holding it in her bare hand and tearing the flesh off the bone with her teeth, like, well, like an animal.

  They returned to the rented room prior to sun-up. The one bed certainly made things awkward. It wasn’t that Prim was so wealthy she’d never shared a bed before. She and Rue, in their younger years, would hide under the covers together giggling and nattering away until they fell asleep. The occasional female cousin came to stay and had shared her room, partly because it meant Prim could keep her out of hive business. Ah, the awkwardness of a vampire queen who had human relations. So very odd, to be related to one’s food.

  But Tasherit was different. Primrose couldn’t articulate it, or didn’t want to, not even to herself. Tasherit never treated her like a female friend or relation. Not really.

  Tasherit, and there was no more circumspect way of putting it, flirted with her. Primrose, who was a consummate flirt, was, as she had soon learned, only consummate when it came to men on the receiving end of her carefully crafted conversation and sweet expressions.

  Thus the prospect of sharing bed linens with the werecat floored poor Prim. With no other options or ideas forthcoming, she removed her outer garments and her stays, and left on her combination.

  Tasherit gave it a funny look. “What is that garment?”

  Primrose looked down at it. It was one of her sensible combinations, muslin and only a little lace in plain cream cotton. It was a little embarrassing that it wasn’t finer and silk and flattering, but it didn’t have any holes or anything, and it was relatively new.

  “This is a perfectly proper combination and we ought not to discuss such things.”

  “Why are you wearing it?” Tasherit said, suiting her own words to actions and stripping herself bare.

  It was startlingly sudden. Primrose jumped and quickly turned away, pretending to lay out her discarded skirts.

  Prim liked to think of herself as progressive, and not only in politics. She was a new woman. She’d recently ordered a bicycling ensemble and the latest in high-flying dirigible attire. Both these outfits came with split skirts and bloomers - and were made in America, for goodness’ sake! She was modern. These were garments she dare not ever wear in England or anywhere her mother might get wind of them, but she couldn’t get away from the sensibleness of split skirts. She was ready for the future. She was open to technological, and fashionable, and supernatural advancements. And she had dealt with Rue’s occasionally necessary nudity throughout their long association. Prim’s best friend changed into a wolf more often than not, which made clothing inconvenient.

  But Tasherit was so very casual about the whole endeavour.

  And Tasherit wasn’t Rue. Or anyone else for that matter.

  Tasherit was all golden limbs and long smooth legs and glossy hair and overmuch naked in a way that Rue was not. Because, well, Rue was Rue, and Tasherit was Tasherit. If Primrose could be more articulate, she might understand why the one bothered her and the other did not. Especially when the one was about to climb into bed and under the covers in all that golden long-limbed glory.

&
nbsp; Primrose kept on her ugly combination as a kind of armour and climbed under the covers and hugged the edge of the narrow bed with single-minded intensity. She tried incredibly hard not to burn and flush in the places where Tasherit touched her. Touch was inevitable in a bed so small, and Tasherit curled into a ball when she slept, for obvious reasons.

  Prim worked to slow her breathing, to feign sleep. A tentative hand settled on her hip. It scalded, but in the best possible way.

  Primrose hated it for its hesitant possessiveness and loved it for the same reason in equal measure. She was also terrified that it meant more to her than any fervent lip pressed to her wrist by any one of her many fiances and even more numerous beaux and swains over the years.

  She kept very very still and Tasherit, no doubt unaware of Prim’s turmoil, fell into a deep deathlike sleep as soon as the first rays of a full warm tropical sun arched above the horizon.

  Prim relaxed and tried to sleep herself. She tossed and turned for a while, fell into a fitful doze, and then awoke after midday, starving. There was also a growing buzzing urge to get them off the station and back aboard the Spotted Custard as quickly as possible.

  Rue, Percy, and the others were no doubt sunk far below. They needed helium, and Primrose realised that it was now her responsibility to get it for them. She was, after all, in charge of supplies and aboard a wheystation.

  She dressed quietly, leaving the sleeping werecat to her daytime dreamlessness, and let herself out into the bustling station, heading towards the supplies and munitions area.

  They anchored the Spotted Custard to some palm trees and somehow managed to remain inflated enough not to actually crash, although it was a near thing. They were only a few feet above the sands.

  Spoo, bless her industrious little heart, found the leak at last. Percy had a soft spot for Spoo. This was mainly because Spoo had befriended his young valet, Virgil. And Percy adored Virgil. Not that Virgil, or anyone else for that matter, would ever know such a thing. Percy would never want to be thought of as sentimental - heaven forfend. His mother was mostly sentimental. From what he’d heard, his father had been wholly sentimental. Percy worked hard to be stoic as a countermeasure. Someone had to.

  Virgil was a good lad, diligent in his efforts to keep Percy clean, well groomed, and modestly turned out. Percy didn’t make it easy on the poor boy and delighted in vexing him with his eccentric academic disregard for attire and chronic misplacement of hats. Virgil, in turn, delighted in chastising his master as if he were the elder and Percy not twice his age. Percy also used Virgil, much as he used Footnote, as a judge of character. Virgil liked Spoo, therefore Spoo must be a decent sort of human. Footnote, his cat, also liked Spoo. Therefore Spoo must be a genuinely good egg. Or possibly eat a great deal of tuna. Footnote couldn’t be trusted to be entirely discriminating.

  Percy, you see, knew himself to be a supremely bad judge of character. He didn’t like anyone. Ever. So he needed his pint-sized valet and his tuxedo cat to figure these things out for him, and to pave the way for his own acerbic personality. Everyone liked Virgil, and most people with sense liked Footnote. Therefore they tolerated Percy’s eccentricities by extension, his household staff acting as ambassadors, of a kind. Percy’s abilities afforded them all a place aboard the Spotted Custard that all, particularly Percy, had come to enjoy rather too much. It thus behooved him to make nice, by extension of his employees if not himself. Of course, Percy would never admit such a thing to anyone.

  So when it was Spoo who found and patched the extremely problematic helium leak, Percy frowned at her severely and secretly cheered for her small victory. Rue praised the deckling soundly as a genius. Rue was good about giving credit where due. It was part of what made her crew so very loyal. She’d even praised Percy on one or two occasions. Not that he was counting. Not that he needed it, of course. He knew his own worth. Still, it was nice to be appreciated.

  I wonder what would happen if I praised someone? Virgil perhaps? He’d likely expire on the spot from the shock.

  Rue promised Spoo extra biscuits at tea for her perspicaciousness. And there you have it - she’s never given me extra biscuits for my navigation.

  Virgil grinned (Spoo slotted him one of the bickies) and then turned his eagle eye on Percy’s loose cravat. Percy batted him away. Everyone generally relaxed under the realisation that they were all still alive and the leak was fixed.

  Now, how to get more helium?

  If she had any sense at all, thought Percy, my sister would come haring down here with a refill tube. That’s assuming one would stretch.

  But she hasn’t any sense, and it’s after sunrise so no doubt Sekhmet is fast asleep and my sister is having kittens over holing up with only the werecat for company.

  “Percy, isn’t it splendid? We aren’t leaking anymore.” Rue turned her big broad smile on him.

  “Splendid,” grumbled Percy.

  Then his semi-nemesis, Quesnel Lefoux, the chief engineer, poked his head above decks.

  Rue ran at him, wrapped her arms about him octopus-like, and then practically picked him up in her enthusiasm. As a general rule, it was Quesnel who liked to twirl Rue about, but with his shoulder currently sporting a bullet hole, it was for Rue to do the lion’s share of the twirling.

  “We fixed it!” crowed Rue. “Well, Spoo did, but still, it’s patched at last.”

  “So I hear, cherie. Good news indeed. Well done, Miss Spoo.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Quesnel didn’t kiss Rue, thank heavens, because they were above decks and the whole crew was scattered about - battening down, sewing up, and hatching things or what have you. Percy was grateful for the man’s restraint. One didn’t expect it from a Frenchman. Percy would rather not witness blatant affections. He knew they occurred, of course. Quesnel and Rue had been, well, Quesnel and Rue for going on a month now. It’s only that Rue was like a sister to him and, simply put, no. It was a little like watching someone eat and enjoy a food you disliked. He was happy they enjoyed it, and happy he didn’t have to eat it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch someone else swallow and belch happily.

  But Rue, who never stayed still very long anyway, was already back dashing about issuing orders and gesturing for things to be put away and repairs to be undertaken.

  “Check over the rest of the balloon as well, please. If that leak went unnoticed for so long, I want to make absolutely certain we have no other squeakers. Willard, draw up a grid rotation and have the decklings climb the entirety, so as not to miss a spot.”

  Willard, the deckhand, nodded and began barking out orders of his own. Percy wondered why he never used the small amplification cone that dangled from his belt expressly for that purpose. Then he wondered at the dissemination of sound within the grey. He hadn’t noticed whether sound was affected by aether immersion, but then he hadn’t bothered to conduct tests.

  Percy sucked his teeth and tried to communicate mentally with his twin. Bring us helium. There was some research to suggest twins had odd supernatural abilities of communication. Percy didn’t believe a word of it. He rarely understood what his sister said half the time, let alone what she did or thought. But it was worth a try. Perhaps it only works with identical twins.

  Then Rue rounded on him. “Percy, what are you doing?”

  “Hoping my sister grows some sense and thinks to acquire helium and transport it to us. I think it’s more likely she’ll find it up there than we will down here.” He hoped his gesture indicated his contempt for the very pretty, but highly useless, creamy sandy beach over which they now bobbed.

  “Oh, that would be nice.” Rue looked delighted by the idea of Primrose coming to their rescue. She had unremitting faith in Primrose. It was sweet. Misplaced, but sweet.

  Percy moved them on from the disappointment no doubt inherent in his sister’s future actions, or lack thereof. “Apart from that, I was wondering about sound transference abilities within contained aether
osphere, and whether the same limits exist as imposed by our standard atmosphere on verbal communication ranges.”

  As always, when he told someone what he was really thinking about, they got flustered and frustrated with him. Or he assumed that’s what Rue’s slightly bug-eyed expression meant. Percy never understood that. Didn’t she find the idea fascinating?

  He continued rambling because it was quite fascinating. “I should go see if I have a copy of Korbouz’s Treatise on Sound Direction and Reverberations of the Human Cavity on board. I don’t think he thought to test it in aether, possibly because he published before the aetherosphere had been charted, but perhaps he had a follow-up pamphlet with the Royal Society and— “

  “Percy!” Rue had that tone of voice. The tone that said Percy had drifted and verbalised a great deal more than anyone but he cared to hear.

  Self-conscious, he crossed his arms and glared at her. “What?”

  “Would you be a doll and check on our prisoner?” Rue gave him her most winning smile. It was a nice smile. She was pretty enough. She wasn’t asking too much, was she?

  Percy grimaced. Rue kept doing this to him. For some reason, he was the only one who seemed at all able to tolerate Rodrigo Tarabotti, otherwise known as Rue’s cousin, otherwise known as their prisoner. This was odd, not the least because, as already mentioned, Percy disliked most everyone. And most everyone disliked Percy. But with Rodrigo (and yes, they were somehow on a forename basis) this established mutual dislike had proved a foundation of something… more.

  Rodrigo, as it turned out, was disposed to dislike people too. And Percy appreciated that in a man.

  Percy sighed. “Fine, if you insist. But I don’t see why I have to be the one to do it all the time.”

  “You’re the only one he hasn’t tried to kill. Yet.”

  Percy frowned. “Are you sure? There were a lot of guns shooting during that attack of his. I distinctly remember being fired at.”

  “Oh, Percy. Just go see if he’s bumped or damaged anything serious during our fall from the skies. Or died. We can’t have him smelling up the place.”