Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [132]
‘What is that?’ she asked.
‘An amplifier,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘It uses one form of energy to amplify another.’ He turned it over in his hands. ‘I strongly recommend you throw it over the side before all the fresh produce aboard begins to rot.’ He set the ring down again and continued rummaging around in the trove for a while longer. Eventually he gave a sigh. ‘My blunderbuss,’ he said. ‘It isn’t here.’
Briana shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea where it is.’
‘It was in a long, narrow box,’ he said, ‘packed with crespic salts to keep it cold.’
‘They might have put it in the arms locker.’
Briana summoned the lieutenant at arms, who led them to the arms locker, where they did indeed locate a box fitting Maske-lyne’s description. The metaphysicist opened the lid and took out the weapon. It was made of brass and dragon-bone, with a dark glass phial fitted underneath the stock. Curls of ice smoke rose from its flared barrel.
Maskelyne grinned like someone who had encountered an old friend. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘We’ll have that line off in an instant.’
Briana frowned. ‘You plan to shoot it?’
‘I do.’
‘With that old thing?’
He nodded.
She felt like she’d been swindled. ‘That’s your great plan?’
‘This old thing is no ordinary weapon,’ Maskelyne said, holding the gun towards her. ‘This phial contains Unmer void flies.’
A moment of silence passed between them.
‘Crespic salts are used to regulate the temperature of the ammunition,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Once frozen inside this phial, the flies remain quite inactive. The barrel is designed to act as a thermal gradient along which the flies are induced to pass once the phial is punctured, thus creating a directional vortex of considerable destructive force, while preserving both the weapon and its operator from harm.’
‘You brought void flies aboard my vessel?’
‘Your crew brought them aboard.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell anyone about it?’ Briana lifted her hands in exasperation. ‘What would have happened if they’d got loose?’ She shuddered to imagine the bloodshed such an event would have caused – a ship riddled with tiny holes; a crew riddled with tiny holes.
Maskelyne grinned again. ‘Now that we have established the worth of such a weapon in our present circumstances,’ he said, ‘we can start to negotiate a price.’
‘A price? For what exactly?’
‘Void flies aren’t exactly easy to come by, you know.’
The Herald’s engineers had constructed a wooden derrick overhanging her stern, allowing a man to be lowered down over the rear of the ship to the smashed rudder by way of a pulley system. First officer Lum looked on as two of the crew hauled their companion back up again.
The first officer snapped to attention as Briana and Maskelyne arrived. ‘Ma’am.’
‘What’s the verdict, Mr Lum?’ Briana asked.
‘We’ve completed our first inspection now, Ma’am.’
The two sailors helped the man swinging from the derrick back onto the deck. He took off his brine goggles and gloves and faced Lum. ‘The rudder’s in bad shape, but it ought to give us some manoeuvrability,’ he said. ‘That harpoon’s in a tricky place though. Buried in solid from what I can see, about a foot under the waterline. I can’t even get close to it because of the waves. I don’t know how he got it in there using one of those old Ferredales. It’s either the luckiest shot or the finest piece of marksmanship I’ve ever seen.’
‘Can you hook the line?’ Lum said. ‘Pull it up?’
The other man shrugged. ‘You’ve got the full weight of the Herald pulling against it, sir. We might be able to rig something up, but we’d brisk tearing off the whole stern post. Then you’d be looking at a hull breach.’