The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [67]
“Ben …” She reached up and took his chin in her fingers. “Have a care, Ben. Women break. You were never rough like this before—it's one thing I loved about you.”
“Answer my question.”
“First, you answer me. Did you read the notes I gave you? About the engines?”
He gave an exasperated sigh and released her. “Yes.”
“And do you believe in them?”
“Yes.”
“You think a countermeasure is possible?”
“Of course. Now, for the last time, who are the Indians fighting in the West? I warn you, I shall know in a few days anyway, for I am outfitting Sterne's flying machine for reconnaissance.”
“You cannot trust his machine. It is malakim engined.”
“I can fix that.”
She stepped closer again. “Ben, believe me, I have no idea whom the Indians might be fighting. I came here alone, in a flying craft.”
“This is the truth?”
“It is the truth. And now, Ben—” She stepped close again, to the point of their touching, to where he could feel her heart beating through her dress, and feel that she wore no corset. “Will you help me?”
“With the countermeasures? Of course.”
“No. Not with that.”
Her arms crept up to his shoulders, then twined around his neck, and her face drew near his.
She was going to kiss him. She was, and he was going to let her.
And then, quite as suddenly, he realized that he was not going to kiss her. He pushed her back.
“Vasilisa, I don't think—”
A steel blade suddenly appeared over his shoulder, its tip against Vasilisa's throat.
“Drop that. Do it now, or I will kill you, by God I will.”
It was a voice he knew—knew very well indeed.
“Lenka?”
“Hush, idiot husband. Don't move.”
Vasilisa's face worked through a quick range of expres sions that started with fury and ended in resignation. Some thing clattered on the stone behind him.
“Now, move out from between us.”
Franklin did so, turning so he could finally see.
What he saw was Roberto, the Apalachee, holding his smallsword up to Vasilisa's throat.
“Lenka?” he repeated.
“Yes, dear husband. I wonder if I shouldn't have let her kill you.”
That was when he noticed the wicked steel pin on the ground where he had been standing.
In the inky depths of Altamaha Sound, a white lotus bloomed. In the instant before understanding, Oglethorpe admired its expanding beauty and the pearlescent green fringe around it.
Then the deck slapped him into the ceiling, and argent sparks flashed behind his eyes. The world briefly forgot gravity, and the quaking hull of Azilia's Hammer filled with shrieks.
“What in God's name?” Oglethorpe shouted, his voice distant and thin even in his own ears. “Did we strike a mine?”
“Nay, General,” MacKay grunted. “Y’ saw it. It were twenty yards off the port bow.” MacKay craned his head up fearfully.
“So they're dropping ‘em?”
“I'd reckon, sir.”
“Be damned. It's night above, and muddy thick down here besides. How do they know we're here?”
“God only knows, sir.”
“Well, we can't sit still waiting for morning anymore, that much is sure.”
“Shall we come to surface, then?”
“Right under the guns of Fort Marlborough? No, I don't think so.”
“But, sir, we can't navigate where we can't see. We'll run aground, or worse.”
“They see us. There must be a way.”
The ship shuddered again from an explosion a little more distant than the last.
“I think those be warnings, General. I think they know where we are exact.”
Oglethorpe chopped his chin in agreement. “Very well. They have some alchemical means of locating us and, further, of knowing we are not friend. But how? Can we confound it?”
Parmenter coughed. “What of the aether compasses of Franklin? They point the way to all sorts of things.”
“True enough. They point at what they're tuned to. Sailing ships keep touch with one another that way. But that must mean that somewhere on the ship the matched needle is hidden.”
“Aye. But where?”
“Fetch that Russian pilot. Quickly.” Oglethorpe