Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

Hot rage overcame Gavin. He snarled and flung himself at the pirate. The pirate’s eyes widened in surprise, but only for a moment. His fist lashed out and caught Gavin squarely in the face. Pain exploded through his head, and he went down to the hard deck.

Gavin awoke to pain. Someone was dabbing at his cheek with a cloth. He opened his eyes and sat up. Light hurt his eyes and sitting up made him dizzy, so he shut his eyes and put his hands to his head. He shivered with cold.

“You’re all right, son.” It was Old Graf’s voice. “Bump on the head, some bruises. You’ll survive.”

Gavin risked opening his eyes again. He was sitting on the deck in the same place he had fallen. For a moment it looked as if everything had returned to normal. Airmen in white moved about the deck and climbed in the netting. Then he saw the stacks of dead bodies, the pools of blood, the gashes in the wood. The two ships were still tethered together, though now they were both moving off, continuing the Juniper ’s original eastern course. The airmen weren’t the crew Gavin knew. They were the pirates. Gavin’s own leathers were gone. He wore nothing but undergarments and chilly skin. Old Graf himself wore a ragged shirt and torn trousers.

“What-?” Gavin said.

“The pirates took our good white leathers for themselves,” he said. “Keep your voice down. You don’t want to call attention to yourself. Here.” He gave Gavin a dirty brown shirt, a pair of loose trousers, and an old pair of shoes. Gavin quickly pulled them on, though they did little to blunt the ever-present wind. The pain in his head continued to throb, and he was thirsty.

“A third of the crew dead, and Captain Naismith,” Old Graf said, unprompted. “Captain Keene-the pirate captain-put some of the ‘dangerous’ survivors off the ship in life balloons already so we wouldn’t try to raise a mutiny.” He handed Gavin a canteen, and Gavin gulped down stale water. “The rest of us are expected to help run the ship until we get to London.”

“London?” Gavin echoed stupidly. “We’re supposed to go to Madrid. I was going to see the castle.”

“Tell that to Captain Keene,” Old Graf growled. “When we get to London, he’s going to sell the cargo and hold us and the Juniper for ransom to the shipping company.”

Outrage cleared Gavin’s head a little. “That’s illegal! We’re not at war with England! That’s-”

“Part of his letter of marque. Keene’s been charged with keeping the airways safe for British ships, and we fired on him first.”

“No, we didn’t!” Gavin said hotly.

“Shush!” Old Graf made a sharp gesture. “Who do you think a British court will believe, son? Just be glad you didn’t get tossed over in a life balloon.”

“Why wasn’t I?” Gavin asked bitterly. “I’m just a cabin boy. The company won’t pay a ransom for me, and my family doesn’t have any money.”

“He spoke for you.” Old Graf jerked his head toward one of the pirates, who was wearing stolen airman leathers and inspecting the hydrogen extractor on deck not far away. “Name’s Madoc Blue. Said he was going to teach you to dance or something.”

Gavin’s gut knotted. Madoc Blue was the pirate who had killed Captain Naismith. As if Gavin’s thought caught Blue’s attention, the pirate turned and met Gavin’s eye. He winked broadly and went back to what he was doing. Gavin fought to keep his face impassive. He had a pretty good idea of what Blue had in mind for him, and the thought made him want to throw up.

“So what do we do?” Gavin whispered.

“We run the ship,” Old Graf said. “And when we get to London, we sit in whatever cell these bastards lock us in and hope the company pays our ransom.”

Three days passed. Gavin fell into a stupor. His body mechanically went through his normal daily tasks under the watchful eye of armed pirates, but his mind was filled with a blessed fog. He scrubbed decks and sewed seams and spliced rope and ran messages for the new captain, all without truly thinking about what he did. At night, he slept fitfully in his hammock, dreaming of his family back in Boston. Sometimes he saw Tom plummeting into an abyss, but he wore Gavin’s own face. Then the pirate first mate would be shouting them awake, and a new day of captive work began. At least Madoc Blue kept his distance. Bernie Yost, the Juniper ’s hydrogen man, had been killed in the original raid, and Captain Keene had given the job to Blue. Even the most tightly sewn ballonets leaked a little, and without continual replacement, the ship would eventually sink to the ground-or into the ocean. An efficient hydrogen extractor was therefore key to the survival of any working airship, and the job of hydrogen man carried the same status as ship’s carpenter or pilot. The job also took up a lot of time, which meant Blue was too busy to pay Gavin any heed.

At the end of the fourth day, Captain Keene, a red-faced man built like a brick, assembled the captive airmen and his pirates on the Juniper ’s deck and announced a celebration for his crew. The pirates cheered. The airmen, less enthusiastic, were to be locked in the brig so the pirates could enjoy themselves without keeping an eye on their captives.

“And who plays this?” Keene demanded of the assembled airmen. Gavin’s entire body jerked. Keene was holding Gavin’s fiddle. Gavin hadn’t even looked at it since the raid. One of the pirates must have found its hiding place. “Come on now-we’ll need music, and one of you American turds can provide some, right?”

Gavin didn’t move. The thought of playing for cavorting murderers turned his stomach greasy and sour. He could feel the other airmen carefully not looking in his direction, but he himself couldn’t take his eyes off his beloved fiddle. Keene’s hand was pressing the strings into the neck, his fingers leaving oily prints on the red-brown wood. Gavin felt violated, as if Keene had laid hands on his soul.

“No one?” Keene said. “Too bad. It must belong to one of the men we killed or put off the ship. No point in keeping it.” He turned and drew his arm back to throw the fiddle overboard.

“Wait!” Gavin said.

Keene paused and turned back.

“It’s mine,” Gavin said miserably. “I’ll play.”

Keene handed Gavin the fiddle and ruffled his hair like an uncle greeting a favorite nephew, even though Gavin was nearly eighteen. “That’s a good lad. Do you sing, too?”

Gavin thought about lying, then decided he didn’t want to know what would happen if the truth came out. “A little,” he hedged.

“Then what are you waiting for, boys?” Keene boomed. “Lock up these miserable bastards and have a party!”

An enormous cheer went up. Gavin watched while his compatriots, including Old Graf, were herded belowdecks to the brig. The crew members were already looking haggard and thinner than just a few days ago. Gavin tried not to shiver in his ragged clothes, and not for the first time he wondered which of the pirates had originally worn them. The sun was setting behind the tethered ships, and the engines continued their implacable rumble as the propellers whirled unceasingly. Somewhere below lay Tom’s body, food for sharks and other sea creatures. Gavin glanced at the envelope overhead. If he hadn’t stopped Naismith, none of this would be happening right now. He wouldn’t be sad, wouldn’t be upset, wouldn’t be thinking at all.

The pirates rolled out several casks of rum and lit the blue-green phosphor lamps that hung about the ship to provide flame-free light amidships. A heavy arm dropped around Gavin’s shoulders. He tried to twist, but the arm held him.

“Looking forward to hearing you,” said Madoc Blue. “Maybe tonight I’ll teach you how to dance.”