Mark Hodder - Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

“I've been looking for that little imp Willy Cornish, but it seems our funnel scrubbers are already crawling about in the pipes.”

“Sweltering work, I imagine. He'll emerge eventually. No doubt you'll catch up with him later.”

“I suppose. I say, there's a bit of a flap on with Mr. Gooch and his people.”

“Why so?”

“The four stern engines have gone wonky. I think it's something to do with the doo-dah forcing the thingamajig to bang against the wotsitsname. There's not much poetry in engineering, is there?”

“Not a lot. Are you quite all right?”

“I'm fine. No, I'm not. Oh, blast it, I don't know, Richard.”

“Thinking about Tom?”

Swinburne heaved a sigh. “Yes. They'll be burying him this afternoon.”

The poet reached into his jacket and pulled out Apollo's gold-tipped arrow. He examined its point. “We didn't catch his killer, and we're going to be away for such a long time that we probably never will.”

“Don't be so sure. I found out last night that Otto Steinruck is actually Count von Zeppelin.”

“What? What? The spy?”

“Yes. I'll be very surprised if his and our paths don't cross again in due course.”

Swinburne's face took on a ferocious expression. “Good!” he snarled. “Good!” He held up the arrow and, in a melodramatic tone, declared: “This is the arrow of justice! I shall carry it with me until Tom Bendyshe is avenged!”

Burton patted his friend's shoulder.

They stood and watched the scenery slipping by far below. Ahead, France's south coast was visible.

Swinburne said, “I think I'll go and do some work.”

“Atalanta in Calydon?”

“No. I've started a little something entitled ‘A Lamentation.’”

“In memoriam?”

“I'm not entirely sure. It might concern another matter entirely. It's hard to tell. It's coming out of here-” he tapped the middle of his chest, “rather than here-” he put a finger to his head. “Maybe it'll make more sense to me when it's finished.”

With that, he left the observation deck.

Burton's fathomless eyes fixed on the line of ocean at the horizon.

“Poems the poet cannot quite grasp. Dreams the dreamer cannot decipher. Mystery upon mystery. And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man. Weaving the unpatterned dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.”

An hour passed, during which time he stood, motionless, lost in thought.

“Sir Richard,” came a voice from behind him. He turned and saw Captain Lawless. “Do you feel a vibration beneath your feet?”

“I do,” Burton answered. “Something to do with the stern engines?”

“Ah, you've heard. They're operating out of alignment with the forward engines and pushing us too hard. If we can't regulate our speed, we'll complete our voyage considerably ahead of schedule but in doing so the ship will have shaken herself half to pieces and won't be fit for the return journey. I don't much fancy being stuck in Zanzibar. I'm on my way down to engineering to see whether Mr. Gooch can cast some light on the matter. Would you care to accompany me?”

Burton nodded, and, minutes later, they found Daniel Gooch in an engineering compartment behind the furnace room. He'd removed a large metal panel from the floor and was on his knees, peering into the exposed machinery beneath. When he heard the two men approaching, he looked up and said, “There's a bearing cradle missing.”

“A what?” Burton asked.

“A bearing cradle. It's a metal ring, twelve inches in diameter, housing a cog mechanism and greased ball bearings. It's an essential component in the system that synchronises the engines. There are four bearing cradles on the ship, each governing four of the flight shafts. The one for the stern engines has gone. Someone has removed it.”

“Are you suggesting we've been sabotaged, Mr. Gooch?” Lawless asked.

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“By someone on board?”

“That's very likely the case, sir.”

Nathaniel Lawless's pale-grey eyes narrowed. He clenched his fists and addressed Burton. “I don't like the idea that one of my crew is a rogue, Sir Richard. Nor do I understand it. Why would anyone wish to interfere with your expedition?”

Burton clicked his teeth together. He glanced at Gooch, who got to his feet and stood with his metal arms poised over his shoulders, then turned back to Lawless. “How much do you know about my mission, Captain?”

“Only that you intend to discover the source of the River Nile. I've been instructed by Mr. Brunel to deliver you and your supplies to Zanzibar. I understand that the government has funded the entire undertaking. Is there something more?”

“There is.”

“Then I ask you to tell me. You can count on my discretion. Mr. Gooch, would you leave us, please?”

“It's all right, Captain,” Gooch said. “You have authority over me on this ship but, as a Technologist, I hold a more senior position and happen to know the details. I apologise for having kept them from you, but our superiors felt that certain aspects of this expedition should remain hush-hush.”

Lawless looked from one man to the other. “That's all well and good, but if the Orpheus is in danger, I have the right to know why.”

“Agreed,” Burton said. “The truth, sir, is that while I hope to finally identify the source of the Nile, it is only a secondary consideration. The priority is to locate and retrieve a black diamond, known as the Eye of Naga. In this endeavour, I am almost certainly opposed by a Prussian spy named Zeppelin.”

Lawless's eyes widened. “Are you telling me that our saboteur is a Prussian agent?”

“In all probability, yes. I should say he was commissioned by Zeppelin to interfere with the ship.”

Lawless raised a hand and ran it over his closely cropped white beard. His eyes flashed. “I'll keelhaul the bastard!”

“I'm not sure that's possible in a rotorship,” Gooch muttered.

“I'll bloody well make it possible!”

“We have to catch him first,” Burton observed.

“It's puzzling, though,” said Gooch. “If the saboteur intends to delay your expedition, don't you think it rather peculiar that he's committed an act which causes the ship to fly faster-albeit destructively so; an act that'll cause you to arrive at Zanzibar considerably earlier than planned?”

Burton frowned. “That, Mr. Gooch, is a very good point. A very good point indeed!”

Burton spoke to Swinburne, Trounce, Honesty, Krishnamurthy, Bhatti, Spencer, Miss Mayson, and Sister Raghavendra, and arranged for them to patrol the ship, keeping a close watch on the crew and their eyes peeled for suspicious behaviour. He then returned to his quarters, intending to update his journal. Pulling a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stopped in his tracks.

There was something on the desk.

He stepped into the room and looked around. The cabin was rectangular and of a medium size, carpeted, wallpapered, and well furnished. One of the thick ventilation pipes ran across the ceiling and four oil lamps were suspended two to each side of it. There were two other doors, one to the small bedchamber and the other to a tiny washroom.

The afternoon sun was sending a shaft of Mediterranean brilliance in through the porthole. Its white glare reflected brightly off the object, which hadn't been on the desk when Burton left the cabin a couple of hours earlier. He'd locked the door behind him. There were no other means of ingress.

He picked the thing up, went back out into the corridor, closed and locked the door, then knelt and squinted at the keyhole. He stood and paced away, heading toward the prow of the rotorship. Doctor Quaint was coming the other way.