1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) (11 page)

The
Arcadia
had moved away from the mountains and over the vast plains by the time Billy came back through the hatch. Ekka helped him inside and took the ropes off him.

“Well?” she asked.

Billy shook his head. As much awe and wonder as there was to be had from gazing over the landscape from so great a height, a wonder of another kind waited for him—the promise of a second kiss.

“Nothing that can’t wait ‘til Texas,” he replied.

“Come,” she said. “Let’s go to our berths. I want to check you over for wounds.”

“I’m not bleeding,” Billy said.

“Rope burns,” she said.

“Oh. Sure.”

Ekka guided Billy below. His trip to the bridge would have to wait.

[ 25 ]

Jonathan Conklin listened as the sounds of fighting diminished. There would be wounded to treat, at some point. Gravity was a strange thing inside the ship. He felt lighter. It took less effort to exhale and it took only little more effort to inhale. The fact that he was lying in his bunk may have something to do with it. He would find out if there was a difference when he got up, but for now there seemed no hurry. The strange ship and its movement through the sky unsettled him.

The strange Americans and their fascination with adventure and with machines! Judah Merkam he would one day kill, this he knew. Ah, to watch the man breathe his last! Such towering intellect. Such understanding of the fundamental forces at work in simple matter. To take the life from him would be an honor.

The first time he had watched a person die was at the Bethlehem Royal Hospital. The common folk had foreshortened the name to ‘Bedlam,’ and then used the new word to describe anyone with a touch of madness. There at Bedlam one Christmas Eve he attended a man named Christian O’Donald, who had tried to kill himself by bashing his own brains out. The man had run headlong into a stone wall repeatedly. According to the note he’d been passed, the man would regain consciousness and then throw himself headfirst at the wall once more. By the time O’Donald was brought to Conklin, he was beyond help. Conklin gave the man opium to ease his pain, then sat in attendance for ten hours until he breathed his last. Those ten hours were filled with such wonder for Conklin. The man’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. The time between each exhale and the subsequent inhale began to lengthen. The color of the man’s face changed slowly to an ashen gray. Then, as they told him in medical school, the death throes began. The little twitches of the muscles. The gasps for air, as though he were no more than a fish thrown on the bank of a stream and left in the sun. Finally, death came. During one moment, the man exhaled, and Conklin waited for an inhale that never came. It was that ultimate
culmination
that so fascinated him. It was...nothing. And at the same moment, it was
everything
.

The day following O’Donald’s death, Conklin was thrown into the blackest of despairs. He found that he had lost all interest in food. Any interest in or drive to conquer femininity had left him long before—had, in fact, departed forever during a common autopsy. A woman was, he found, no more than the sum of her parts, and her parts could be extracted and labeled. It was the labeling he had accomplished with a loving care that astounded him, and he very nearly changed his direction to one of pathogism rather than that of healing. But no, his proctor would never excuse the change. His two pounds and sixpence per month was pledged against his becoming a medical doctor, and there was no turning back. He could not continue to live without the pay—he would, in fact, be thrown into the street when the rent came due.

Conklin found a way to continue his studies as the curriculum had been laid out for him, and at the same time, branch into fields of study of his own. But most importantly, he found a way to banish the black despair that dogged his every waking step.

And when had that been? Twenty years ago. The sense of passing time—the inexorable passage of so many years—had completely bypassed him.

His first experiments never made the London papers.

It had happened suddenly and without thought. One moment he was walking by a beggar on the cobblestone street after a long day of study and memorization, and the next he was stooping to peer closely at the man. The penknife he clutched in his coat pocket leapt toward the man and slashed his face. The man was shocked, stunned for a moment. He opened his toothless mouth to cry out and the knife sang again, slashing his throat.

Conklin watched in the dim light of a faraway gas lamp as the beggar went into convulsions. His blood spurted and streamed down his dirty jacket and pooled on the stones beneath him. Conklin grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him into the alleyway. He pulled him for a hundred yards until he found a cone of light from a window above him and there he began the dissection. There would be no labeling there in the dark. Instead he mouthed the Latin names of the pieces he withdrew as he flung them into the dark for the rats and perhaps the stray dogs to devour
: anterior vena cava, levator muscle, esophagus, spleen
—

The litany did not end until he realized he was himself covered in blood. How long had he stood there? There was so little left! He rolled the remains in the rags and stuffed them away in the first place he could find, a dark culvert that fed into the vast city’s network of drainage canals. He ran home, removed his clothing and burned them piece by piece in his fireplace.

He had done it. He was both healer and destroyer. And he had become a god!

On his bunk of the
Arcadia
, Jonathan Conklin relived this first victory, and shivered.

[ 26 ]

Ekka patted her bed for Billy to sit and said, “Remove your pants and boots.”

Billy did as she asked and winced as he took off his boot and sock from the bruised and rope-burned ankle. “I didn’t notice it being this bad during the fracas.”

Ekka opened a small bag and removed cloth wraps and several vials of medicine. She cleaned his wounds with a gentleness that surprised Billy. For all her Amazon-like deadliness in battle, she had the softest of touches while treating him. Billy sighed as she coated the friction burns with a cream that instantly stopped the pain. “I could take a bath in that stuff,” he said.

She had him take off his shirt and lie on his stomach while she treated numerous small cuts, long furrows from bullet grazes, and dozens of scrapes Billy didn’t even realize he had. By the time she finished, Billy had dozed off. Ekka kept her hand on his bare back for a moment so she could feel his warmth and the slow rise and fall of his breathing, then she leaned down and kissed his cheek. She covered him with a light blanket before leaving.

The room was quiet for several minutes, then Abigail walked in and looked at him, still asleep on his stomach, his face turned towards the wall. Her eyes were luminous as she sat on the side of the bed and bent down so her face was at the nape of Billy’s neck. Abby let out an almost inaudible moan as she inhaled his scent, a combination of odors that made her think of wild places. She felt her pulse quicken and her throat flush. Using only her forefinger and thumb, she eased the blanket off Billy’s back. He did not stir. She once, several years ago, studied and observed, even caressed Michelangelo’s statue of David, and Billy’s body was the same perfection.

Abby turned so she could recline beside him on the bed, and she let her hand rest on the small of his back. Her lips moved toward his neck and she whispered, “Oh, Billy, Billy.”

A sound came from the hallway. Abigail sat upright, then eased from the bed and out the door. She stopped for a long moment to look at Billy; her lips slightly apart, her eyes molten. Then she left.

Billy waited a full minute before he turned his head and looked at the empty doorway. He took a big breath in relief, “Somebody is gonna get a one-way ticket to Purgatory if this keeps up. Lord have mercy.”

He dressed, but kept one eye on the doorway. He knew one thing, too. He needed to find another pistol since his Colts were lost in the battle. He still had the long knife Ekka loaned him, the one she called a Kinzhal and he called an Arkansas Toothpick, but he was better with pistols. Wickedly better. If these female-driven events aboard the
Arcadia
continued to a conflagration point and Charon waited to ferry someone across the river Styx, he wanted to make sure he stayed on shore.

Billy finished dressing and left for the transmogrifier room. He needed to talk to Ross and to pass some time with John Barleycorn. He liked Ross and hoped the mechanical scientist knew nothing of his wife’s actions. He made his way to Ross’ work area and heard him long before he saw him.

Ross held the bottle by the neck, using his human hand to guide the vessel to his mouth while the mechanical arm acted as if it were afflicted with apoplexy. Billy said, “I was coming to visit, and maybe slake my parched innards if you’ve a mind to share.”

Ross looked at him and Billy thought he saw a well of deep pain in the man’s eyes, then Ross beckoned him over and handed him the bottle. “Good to see you, Billy. Lately, our talks are too few.”

Billy looked around for a glass, saw none, so took a drink from the bottle and passed it back. “Ít was a bit of a waltz for a while there, but up here in the ether and out over the plains like we are, I think we can palaver a while without repercussions.”

“A noble idea. Shall we sit at the table?”

“Lead the way, amigo.”

Ross grabbed two glasses from a drawer, cleaned them with his shirt sleeve and sat them on the table. Both men poured amber liquid in their glasses and they toasted, then downed the bourbon. “That is mighty fine,” Billy said.

Ross poured them both another and they sipped these, with Ross saying, “Are any sky vessels dogging our tracks?”

“Haven’t seen any. Those pirates like to hang close to the mountains so they can hide and attack from ambush. Out here on the plains they only have clouds to get behind.”

“The Algerines are a loutish group. Behind their black sails and Jolly Rogers and kegs of rum, they are nothing more than animals on two legs.”

“They are all that for sure.”

“I hear we have one on board.”

“We do. Blackbeard the fourth or eighth, or thirteenth, something like that. Jay-Patten ousted him when they decided to doe-si-doe against each other with their frog stickers.”

“Denys is a good swordsman.”

Billy raised his eyebrows, “I think he might be better than just good.”

Ross tossed the remainder of his drink back and motioned for Billy to do the same. Billy did and Ross immediately refilled their glasses. “Do you know who taught Denys the art of the blade?”

“I don’t know. Some Count or Duke I figure.”

Ross smiled, then downed his drink and beckoned Billy to do the same. Billy did, but he was feeling the effects of the fast drinking already and would have to slow way down if he expected to continue talking. Ross refilled their glasses, “I taught him.”

“You did?”

Ross indicated the spasming, quivering mechanical arm, “Before I lost it. No one ever bested me, including Denys.” His mood darkened and he downed the drink and poured himself another. Billy sipped his. Ross continued, “Then this.”

“But you’re rich, a genius. Being able to use a sword is not something you should consider a big thing.”

Ross looked at Billy with a sad smile. “I hope you never find out something similar in your life.”

Billy wanted to change the melancholy subject and said, “Hey, why don’t we go upstairs and open the hatch, look out over the land. We can bring the bottle.”

“This one is almost empty, let me get another. It will be good to breathe fresh air and see earth and sky from such an aerie. These close walls and these metal creatures leave a pall over my disposition.” As they rose from the table, Ross said, “I’m glad you came to visit, Billy.”

They took the bottle with them and traversed the ship looking for Merkam. They found him in the control room, adjusting dials and levers, and tweaking two small brass wheels. Billy asked, “How high up are we?”

Jude said, “Ten thousand feet above sea level.”

“How high is that above the ground underneath us right now?”

“We are approximately six thousand feet above the earth at this latitude and longitude. Why do you ask?”

Ross said, “We are going to open the hold and look outside.”

“Why?”

Billy said, “Because.”

Jude wrinkled his forehead, then shrugged, “Be observant. We need no accidents on the
Arcadia
.”

“You bet,” Billy said and led the way to the cargo hold. Billy opened it and the panorama of earth spread out before them. Both men sat in the opening and dangled their feet over the edge.

There were some strange flapping and popping noises carrying over the air and Ross craned his head to see better under the
Arcadia
. Several ropes floated like seagulls on the wind, with one or the other occasionally curling up and snapping like a whip as an errant breeze sent turbulence around it. Billy said, “There’s about half a dozen of them still hung up on the ship. I chased them around for a while but it was too tricky. So I figured they would be okay till we get to San Antone.”