Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [44]
“No,” Big Thom said. “It’s not easier. When you told me you’d dived, I thought you understood that. But you’re not going down. Not in my suit.”
Big balls, too. Not many men would say “no” so baldly to Mad Machen’s face.
Quiet fell over the main deck. The crew wasn’t used to hearing that word said to him, either.
“She’s not going down alone. Not on this first run.”
“That’s your business,” Big Thom said, as if he didn’t see the pulse throbbing in Mad Machen’s temples and the tension whitening the pirate’s knuckles and lips. “Unless you’ve practiced swimming with the brass guards over that canvas, weighing you down, you aren’t any good to her anyway—and I’ll probably be hauling up your dead body.”
“Then I won’t use the guards.”
Ivy’s voice called from starboard, “And lose your other leg to a shark?”
Yasmeen glanced over her shoulder, where the blacksmith was climbing out of the submersible’s hatch, her eyebrows drawn and mouth tight. She leapt to the deck, followed by Archimedes.
“There’s more than that,” Big Thom added. “You’ve got to know to keep your hose from kinking. You’ve got to know how fast you can come up. Give me a few hours and I’ll find a diver who can go down with her. You can’t.”
“I can,” Archimedes said.
Yasmeen huffed out a laugh. Of course he could. And was idiot enough to offer.
Mad Machen’s wild gaze landed on her face. Ah, softhearted Eben. She’d have blamed love for this, but he’d already been a bit mad before he’d met Ivy.
She shrugged. “He made it through the Underwater Perils of Porto.”
The pirate looked to Archimedes. “You go down, then. If she doesn’t come back up, I’ll kill you.”
That wouldn’t do at all. Yasmeen said, “But before he kills you, make sure to hook that hoist chain to my strongbox.”
Archimedes grinned. “I’ll do that.”
He shrugged out of his coat, Mad Machen handed the canvas suit to her as he crossed the deck to meet Ivy—and that quickly, Yasmeen became an idiot’s valet. Facing her, only a foot away, Archimedes held her gaze while he shed his waistcoat.
“Will you fear for me, Captain?”
“No. You have a fool’s luck.”
“It does seem to be returning.” He sat back against a tackle chest and hauled off his boots. “Perhaps because you came back to me. My favorite mercenary.”
That nonsense didn’t even warrant a response. He stepped into the diving suit and she fastened the back, checking the edges for a watertight seal. The water would be cold. Wet and cold could be disastrous.
“I think Big Thom’s half in love with her,” Archimedes said. “I probably ought to warn him about Mad Machen.”
Yasmeen looked around his shoulder to where Mad Machen and Ivy stood with the salvager. The blacksmith was showing him the submersible’s air pump, which operated in the same way as the diving suit’s pump, but was cranked by a windup mechanism instead of by hand. Big Thom did appear stricken with longing, yet not by Ivy herself.
“It’s her arms, you idiot.” When the Horde grafted tools onto the laborers in the occupied territories, it cared about function, not appearance. The skeletal prosthetics beneath the salvager’s heavy coat sleeves and gloves probably looked more like thin steel bones than limbs. “He’s likely never seen mechanical flesh before.”
“And couldn’t afford it even if he had?”
“Yes.” The only person outside of Xanadu who could manipulate the nanoagents necessary to create mechanical flesh was the Blacksmith in London, but his work didn’t come cheap. And though Big Thom could buy a pair of arms on credit, few people risked owing a debt that large to the Blacksmith—especially if they couldn’t be certain of making every payment. She gestured to the quartermaster, standing near the main mast. “Barker will be paying off his leg for a decade.”
Archimedes whistled softly. “That’s a heavy weight.”
“Not as heavy as ten thousand livre.”
“That only weighs as much as a stolen da Vinci sketch.” He