Winter of the Passion Flower (The de Vargas Family) (6 page)

She turned away from him. “First you must
prove your loyalty to me. Now come, we have a voyage to make.”

Zane looked around the
Artemis
in
amazement after following Indigo and the Grimoults down the metal ladder
leading from the hatch to the boiler room. A massive boiler dominated the
center of the room, flanked by two big fireboxes. A cylindrical water reservoir
linked it to the side skin, each pipe covered with coiled rope. He reached out,
carefully touching the rope.

“For insulation,” advised Mr. Grimoult,
walking to a series of analogue dials at the front of the room. “We have
approximately twenty-five minutes left.”

“It is more modern than my vessel, but I am
sure my knowledge is easily transferable.” Zane spoke with confidence.

“Your role is to navigate through the
harbor once we get there. Come to the control room before we change our
clothing.”

Zane turned to Indigo, confused. “The
harbor? What about the long journey across the Atlantic?”

She simply smiled and held out her hand out
to guide him through the narrow gangway. Immediately Zane felt the usual hit of
warmth from their close contact and stepped back to out some space between
them.

 A series of small spaces led to the
control room at the front of the vessel. As they bent through each low space,
Indigo outlined its purpose. “Sonar space, temporal storage, escape pod,
greenhouse, bunk room.”

“Where are the rest of the bunk rooms?”
Zane scanned the room for another entry, confused by the lack of quarters.

“We only need one,” she replied.

“Where is the food storage and preparation
area?”

“There isn’t one. We don’t need it.”

Her reply confused him further and an
uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. Looking around the control room, the
unfamiliar dials and the analytical engine increased his apprehension . This
was the strangest vessel he had ever boarded. Both the control room and
equipment were unlike any submarine he had ever seen. A huge semicircular
screen followed the shape of the hull, covering the front half of the room. A
single analytical engine sat in the center, flanked by two small leather
chairs. The only pieces of familiar equipment were the brass periscope and
rudder levers. Feeling a surge of panic, he doubted his ability to master this
strange vessel.

Mrs. Grimoult bustled in, carrying some
clothing, and handed a bundle to each of them. “Hurry up, fifteen minutes until
temporal movement commences.”

Zane narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What
is temporal movement?”

“You will see shortly, sir.” Mrs. Grimoult
hurried out, avoiding looking at him.

Indigo turned away from him and unlaced her
corset. Peeling it off and throwing it aside, she stepped out of her skirt.
Turning back to face him, she stood bare-breasted, clad only in a miniscule red
undergarment. Never before had he seen such a magnificent and confident woman.
Her statuesque beauty took his breath away.

“Breeches off, please, captain.”

The blood drained from his head and
immediately pumped to his nether regions. With shaking fingers, Zane undid the
flaps on his breeches as instructed, stepping out of them. All thoughts of
navigating this unfamiliar vessel disappeared in an instant. Indigo pulled on a
pair of strange blue trousers, which hugged her long legs like a second skin.
His linen undergarment strained against his rapidly growing erection and he
turned away from her, but too late.

“Impressive, but not now.” Her smile was
wide and her eyes glinted with amusement. “I hope those pants will fit you. I
did not realize you were so big…your thighs, I mean, Captain.”

The blood rushed back to his face and
warmed his cheeks. At times the unpredictability of this woman made him as
nervous as a young buck. He could not keep up with her. Leaning forward, she
pulled her hair back and threaded a piece of circular stretching twine such as
he had not seen before through her hair, confining her black curls into a high
ponytail.

“What is that?” he asked.

“An elastic band,” she replied. “It is made
of rubber from the latex plantations in the south American rainforest. It
hasn’t been invented yet.”

“I beg your pardon?” he said. “What do you
mean it hasn’t been invented?”

 Indigo ignored his question. “Hurry
up and get dressed, we will be underway shortly.” Her voice was muffled as she
pulled a tight, red shirt over her head. Zane followed her instructions and
quickly pulled on the blue pants and the soft, tight shirt. When he held it up
it was in the shape of a large T. The interlocking metal teeth that closed the
opening at the front of his pants intrigued him and he stood there sliding it
up and down for a moment, watching the teeth grip and open and close with each
movement. When he glanced up, Indigo was watching him with a wide smile on her
face. He hurriedly slid the metal teeth to the top and snapped the brass button
at his waist. They were the most comfortable trousers he had worn.

“Ten minutes,” yelled Mr. Grimoult.

Indigo moved across to the machine in the
center of the room. A quick tap on the alphabet board in front of the
rectangular glass lit the screen and an analogue clock appeared. “This is our
origin time. Can you please check that your timepiece is synchronized?”

Glancing down at the chronometer on his
arm, Zane replied. “Eight-fifteen.”

“Eight-fifteen, morning, fourteenth
February, 1851,” she confirmed.

As she quickly tapped on the keyboard, Zane
watched the detail on the screen change to a string of numbers. “Four dot
fifteen, fourteen oh two, twenty eleven. Seventeen degrees, thirty-eight
minutes, twenty-two seconds south. Seventy-one degrees, twenty minutes, fifteen
seconds west.”

“Two minutes,” yelled Mr. Grimoult.
“Prepare for temporal movement. Time engines half full. Set for one hundred and
sixty years.”

Disbelief filled his mind as a whoosh of
steam sounded from the boiler room and a loud humming began in the control
room. The Grimoults hurried in, dressed in similar clothing to his, the little
housekeeper looking most peculiar in the tight blue pants. A flashing blue
light rotated slowly across the top of the control room, and the humming
continued as the submarine suddenly submerged. Zane clutched at his stomach as
the light rotated rapidly and a soft blue haze suffused the entire room.
Grabbing at the edge of the table as the room faded, he was unable to keep his
balance. The faces of Indigo and the Grimoults stretched beyond recognition as
he looked up at them from the floor. The roof of the control room spun around
him and the light disappeared.

* * * *

“The captain did well for a first-timer,”
said Mrs. Grimoult leaning over Zane who lay on the floor rubbing his eyes.

Indigo leaned over him, her long fingers
stroking his face. “Wake up, Captain. We have entered the harbor. We need you
to steer the
Artemis
through the marina.”

Mr. Grimoult assisted Zane to his feet,
guiding him to the rudder controls. Pressing the fingertips of one hand to the
bridge of his nose, Zane used the other hand to adjust the periscope with the
brass knobs.

“Do you have a map of the harbor?” he
asked, his voice shaking.

A pang of remorse shot through Indigo;
perhaps it would have been kinder to prepare him for the temporal voyage.
Zane’s face was pale, his pupils dilated and perspiration soaked the front of
his T-shirt, it was clear to any onlooker his body was unaccustomed to the
effects of time travel. Mr. and Mrs. Grimoult had acclimatized to the change of
time travelling over the years and their many voyages, as she had.

Indigo touched the keyboard of the
analytical engine and pulled up a screen of Ilo, the capital of Moquegua
province in Peru. “We are a mile offshore at the beginning of a wide channel
into the marina. Mr. Grimoult, would you please show the captain our usual
mooring?”

Zane steered the
Artemis
successfully to the mooring as the older man pointed to the screen directing
him between the hundreds of boats on the surface. He made no further comment
but his lips were tight and the pulse jumping in his check told Indigo he would
have much to say once they were ashore.

* * * *

An hour after surfacing, Indigo and Zane
climbed through the hatch, stepping onto the pier at the eastern end of the harbor.
The Grimoults would stay on the
Artemis
, remaining submerged in the
daylight hours.

“We will be back with the blooms in
forty-eight hours. Be ready to meet us at the end of the pier at this time the
day after tomorrow,” she directed.

“Take care, Madame,” said Mr. Grimoult.
“And you too, sir.” He slapped Zane on the back as he prepared to ascend the
ladder

Giving them a quick wave, Indigo grabbed
Zane’s hand and ran along the pier, dragging him along behind her. He did not
speak as he ran with her, tight lipped and his face expressionless. Reaching
the end of the pier and crossing the deserted road, Indigo frowned at Zane,
slightly surprised by his compliant behavior. “Are you all right? No side
effects from your fall, Captain?”

Zane stopped, pulling her back toward him.
Holding tightly onto her waist, he glared down at her. “What do you think,
Madame? You ask me to pilot your submarine. You spend a whole night going
through the preparations for the voyage. You pass me off as your brother to get
the information you seek. You show me through your biomes. You even say you
will trust me.” He leaned down placing his face close to hers and a shiver ran
through her as his voice deepened.

“However, you neglect one little detail.
One piffling detail you obviously didn’t think important. You forgot to tell me
you have a vessel that travels not only through space. It travels through time
as well. You neglected to tell me that not only are your plants in the Amazon,
but they are in the bloody twenty-first century, and then you have the damned
hide to ask me if I am all right!”

Indigo looked into his angry face and bit
back a satisfied smile. Zane’s anger pleased her. Compliant since they had
first met; she wondered if he had any backbone. However, she was desperately in
need of a captain for the water stage of their time journey, and she had
gambled and cast her doubt aside.

Zane pushed her away and stepped back,
running his fingers through his shaggy hair. Indigo reached up, grabbed his
face with both hands, and gave him a swift, hard kiss on his tight lips.
“That’s an apology, Captain. Consider yourself honored, because I do not do it
often. Apologize, that is. Now come on.”

The sounds of a town stirring to life in
the early morning greeted them as they wound their way through the back streets
behind the harbor. It appeared to be a seedy part of the town and they hurried
though the rabbit warren of narrow streets.

“Do you know where you are going?” Zane’s
breath came in short pants as they ran down a narrow alley. Lights came on in a
few of the houses they passed but there were no citizens on the road at this
early hour.

“Of course I do,” she snapped. “We must be
through town before the sun rises. We will meet Luis, our guide at the
expedition lodge base. We have a long drive to the river, and then he will take
us to the headwaters on a river barge. After that, we only have a short trek to
the plantation through the jungle.”

Indigo stressed the need to be alert. “I
still don’t trust the duke. There is still something causing me concern. I
suspect he has bribed a member of the submarine crew. I suspect Leopold knows
exactly where we are and what we are doing.”

Their footsteps clattered down a narrow
cobbled lane. Indigo heard a quick intake of breath as Zane stopped behind her.

“Jesus, what now?” said Indigo with
exasperation, following the direction of his stare to the faded board above the
shop. Even though the paint was peeling, the sign advertising
Tatuajes por
Juan
was legible.

“Tattoos by Juan,” she read and her heart
started to pound. She was amazed to see the same little shop still in the same
place. One hundred and seventy years had passed since she had last been there.

“I have been here before,” Zane spoke
slowly. “This is where I got my tattoo. I know that, but I don’t remember it.”

Indigo touched his arm gently. “I believe
you. I also know we have been here together before. However, we will explore
that later. Now, Captain, are you coming on this expedition with me or will I
leave you here?”

* * * *

Luis drove the vehicle confidently through
the mountainous terrain appearing unfazed by the steep hills and deep ravines
and did not converse for most of the journey. As the vehicle bounced over
potholes and corrugated washouts, Zane hung on tightly, occasionally looking
over the edge of the escarpment, certain he would not survive the journey. He
had survived a temporal voyage; however this leg of their quest was filled with
more danger. Finally, Luis swung the wheel a final time and the vehicle entered
a fenced compound near the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River. The sound of
flowing water filled his ears and Zane pushed the door handle quickly when the
Land Rover came to a sudden stop and he slid to the muddy ground. Looking up,
he caught Indigo stifling a grin. Leaning out the window, she laughed.