Stephen Baxter - Anti-Ice

“We must suspect the Prussians,” Holden said harshly, his mouth a tight little line. “They, after all, initiated the present war with France with their devious conniving over the Ems telegram. Perhaps this incident is an Ems telegram for our King, eh? Well, by God; if they think they can tweak the lion’s tail—”

But I was scarcely listening, for some unused deductive bump was beginning to function. “Holden—”

“No time! No time!” Traveller leapt down from his ladder and began pulling out the seats once more. “Sit, all of you! There are restraints beneath the seat cushions; Vicars, I will help you. Pocket, make that fat fellow sit down!”

But Sir Josiah’s incomprehensible behavior—even his use of my correct name—went past me in a blur. “Holden, I cannot remember the geography of the ship.” I found I was shouting over a rising noise, a rushing like a waterfall from somewhere beneath our feet; Traveller hovered over me, frock coat flapping, as he pulled the patent restraints about my waist and chest. “Holden!” I cried. “Funnels ran through the Grand Saloon, did they not?”

“They did, lad.”

Now Traveller and Pocket took their own seats; soon the four of us sat strapped at the four points of the compass in the little Cabin, staring at each other wild-eyed. I called to Holden, “And the funnel which exploded—was it one of those running through that Saloon? It was, wasn’t it?”

“Ned, there’s nothing you can do now.”

The whole of the Phaeton rattled around me, but all I could see were those mirrored columns passing through the crowded Saloon. There must be hundreds dead.

And—

“I must go to her.” I tried to stand, slumped foolishly as the restraints hauled me back, and fumbled with the buckles at my waist and breastbone.

“Vicars, I beg of you!” Traveller’s voice was a roar which drowned out even the supernatural clamor from beneath our feet. “Stay in your seat!”

My straps released, I stood and reached for the ladder.

The floor bucked beneath me again; I caught a glimpse of the Inferno through the nearest port—the Promenade Deck careering wildly, live steam fleeing across the metal, people running from the steam, screaming—and then came a brief sensation of falling, a muffled, thumplike explosion beneath the floor, another lurch sideways.

I slammed into the floor. I felt blood under my face, and a steady pressure which pressed me through the rugs and into the metal beneath.

As if from a great distance I heard the voice of Holden. “May God preserve us,” he cried. “The Phaeton is aloft!”

With a great effort I lifted my head once more to the port. Now the landscape was curved over on itself, an inverted blue bowl; but still there was the noise, the vibration, the stink of my own blood—

Darkness folded around me.

It was as if I lay in the softest feather-bed in the world. I drifted in silence, content to doze like a child.

“…Ned? Ned, can you hear my voice?”

The words stirred my awareness. At first I resisted their probing, but the voice persisted, and at last I felt myself bobbing like a cork to the surface of consciousness.

I opened my eyes. The round face of Holden hovered over me, bearing every expression of concern; he had lost his cummerbund, his collar and tie were crumpled and pulled around through a right- angle, and his mussed hair appeared oddly to float around his face, like an oiled, black halo.

“Holden.” I found my throat was dry, and the taste of blood lingered in my mouth.

“Are you all right? Can you sit up?”

I lay there for a moment, allowing the sensations of my body, my limbs, to run through my mind. “I certainly feel stiff, as if I have been worked over by a few toughs; and yet I feel remarkably comfortable.” I turned my head, half-expecting to find that I was lying on some form of bunk bed, but only a rug—bloodstained—lay beneath me. “How long have I been out?”

Holden took my shoulder and lifted me to a sitting position; I seemed to bounce oddly on the Turkish rug and my stomach lurched briefly, as if I were falling. I dismissed this as dizziness. “Only a few minutes,” Holden said, “but—Ned, our situation has changed. I think you should prepare yourself for a shock.”

“A shock?”

I glanced around the craft. Holden himself was crouched on the rug, grasping its edge as if his life depended on it; poor Pocket remained strapped into his chair, his face as clammy as a plucked chicken.

And Traveller?

Sir Josiah stood before a porthole, his stovepipe screwed tightly to his head. In one hand he held a small notebook and pencil, and the other hand he held between his face and the window with fingers outstretched; blue-white light streamed in through the window, casting highlights from the polished platinum fixed to his face. (The other windows were darkened, I noticed, and the Cabin’s acetylene lamps had been lit.)

Then I wondered if I were still dreaming.

I have said that Traveller stood before his port, and such was indeed my impression on first glance; but as I studied him more closely I observed that his large shoes were some four inches above the oilskin. Indeed, a slight bend in Traveller’s knees allowed me to inspect the manufacturer’s name imprinted on the soles.

Thus Sir Josiah floated in the air like some illusionist, apparently without support.

I looked up into Holden’s face. His hand was on my shoulder. “Steady, now, Ned. Take it one item at a time—”

A wave of panic swept over me. “Holden, am I losing my mind?” I pushed at the rug with my hands, intending to draw my legs under me and stand up. The rug drifted from beneath my fingers, and I sailed into the air as if drawn by an invisible string. I scrabbled at the rug, first with my hands, then with the tips of my boots, but to no avail; and soon I was stranded, adrift in the air, arms and legs outstretched like some flailing starfish.

“Holden! What is happening to me?”

Holden remained seated on the rug, his fingers wrapped around it. “Ned, come down from there.”

“If you’ll tell me how, I will,” I shouted with feeling. Now, with a soft impact, my neck and shoulders collided with the upper, curving hull of the chamber. I reached behind my back with both hands, seeking a purchase, but my fingers slid over the frustratingly sheer leather of the walls, and I succeeded only in pushing myself forward so that I hung upside down in the air. It was as if Holden hung absurdly from the ceiling, and Pocket was suspended from the straps of his chair, while the Great Eastern model in its glass case dangled like some nautical chandelier.

My stomach revolved.

A strong hand shot out and grabbed my arm. “In God’s name, Wickers, keep your breakfast down; we’d never get the damn place cleaned up.”

It was Traveller; with his bony ankles wrapped in chair straps like some frock-coated monkey’s he hauled me through a disconcerting 180 degrees and hurled me bodily toward the floor. I landed close to a chair; with relief I grabbed at it, pulled myself down and strapped in.

In the exertion Traveller’s hat had become dislodged. Now it hung in the air, rotating like a dandelion seed; with grunts of irritation Traveller swatted at it until the hat sailed into his arms, and then he jammed it safely back on his head.

With comparative normality restored—save for the disturbing propensity of my legs to hover in mid- air—I remarked to Holden, quite coolly in the circumstances, “I have no doubt this all has a rational explanation.”

“Oh, indeed.” He brushed a hand over his black hair, plastering it into comparative order. “Although I suspect you will not enjoy the answer.”