Robert Appleton - Prehistoric Clock

Bitterness welled up. The weight of the surge was greater than she could handle but spying the Empress steeled her resolve. A captain should never cry in front of her crew. She needed somewhere to hide, yet the entire camp was watching. Her bottom lip quivered, so she wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

Tangeni appeared to glimpse her emotion as he said, “ Eembu, I think Billy has something to show us.” He took the youngster’s hand and then motioned for her to do likewise. “Lead the way, young master.”

Like rummaging through an old drawer, being led by a child through the detritus of London drew long-forgotten memories. The way she’d once seen the world-not aggregated and mastered but magical. A child’s mind could not grasp Whitehall and Westminster. They were too imperious, too cold. They were permanent things the world could not do without, like soil and sunshine. So what could a child possibly make of those things in ruins?

Bernie had loved the empire, and Verity had grown to love it. She sighed. When Bernie had died, that empire she’d revered, put her life on the line for, had collapsed for Verity the way London had just collapsed for Billy. She now saw it clearly for the first time, without the corps’ camaraderie to buoy her patriotism. She was living in the shadow of that day, and all this-flying Gannets, fighting wars, cropping her hair-was in Bernie’s name. Strangely, it all seemed to fit but why hadn’t she admitted it before now? Had no part of Verity wanted to join the Air Corps? If not, why was she such a talented aeronaut? Why had she loved her time in Africa? Loved her time in the air, on the waves, under the waves…?

“This was your father’s wagon?” Tangeni asked Billy as they reached the uncoupled rear section of the tri-wheel vehicle. It was square, white, and was mounted on two wheels. Two painted red bands bisected all sides.

“What have you got in here, Billy?” Verity asked.

The lad unbolted a well-concealed door in the rear panel, opened it and climbed inside. He quickly returned with a metal container the size of a shoebox and two spoons. Without making eye contact with her or Tangeni, he prised the lid off with a spoon handle and passed the open container to Verity. “You said there were no ice cream,” he said in his thick Lancashire accent. “’Ere you go. That there’s me favourite-raspberry an’ vanilla. It’ll be soft by now but taste’ll still be there.”

Tangeni looked at her, grinned with astonishment, and then dipped his finger in the ice cream. “ Omashini…ojuice. It is wonderful.” He thanked Billy for the spoon and delved into the half-full trough. Verity joined in.

“Mm, that’s divine,” she said. “And you’re full of surprises, my young friend.” She kissed Billy’s forehead. He looked up at her for the first time, a beatific smile lighting his pale face. Tangeni wiped the lines of tears from the lad’s cheeks with his handkerchief. As soon as the youngster saw the warmth in Tangeni’s eyes, he climbed back into the vehicle. Moments later, he returned with a spoon for himself.

“Reba, is that stay line doubled in?”

“Yes, Eembu. ” The rigger wiped her brow while the sun blazed relentlessly.

Verity took a swig from the captain’s hipflask she’d filled with the lemonade Billy had given her. The lad had doled out the best of his father’s refrigerated supplies to herself, Tangeni, Reardon, and that son of a bitch, Embrey, whom Billy followed everywhere. Apart from a few bottles of sarsaparilla and flavoured water, the remainder of the ice cream wagon’s supplies were either wafer cornets or melted desserts. She’d given those to the Whitehall group, whose meagre rations, for the time being, would have to be shared from the contents of four residential kitchens, the larder and wine cellar in the gentleman’s club, a few freight crates containing foodstuff salvaged from the collapsed station house, and one cold dinner for twelve impeccably laid out moments before the disaster had hit. Not much to feed over two dozen mouths over an indeterminate period of time. No, as soon as the Empress returned, they would have to organise hunting and perhaps fishing parties to procure a sufficient diet.

“Tangeni-peacock-are those ballonets filled and secured?” Her second in command had been strutting about the quarterdeck admiring his new first lieutenant’s insignia ever since he’d finished the steam-methane reforming operation, his specialty, over an hour ago.

“Aye, Captain. Endothermic reaction successful, the pumps and pipes held, the ballonets have new life.”

She whispered, “What do you make of that bastard Embrey roaming about the ship, free as you like? Seditious scum like that, he’s campaigned against the admiralty ever since his father and uncle were hanged. I wouldn’t bet against him being in cahoots with the enemy all along. Damned traitor-he should be clapped in irons.”

“Sorry, Eembu, what was the question?”

She rolled her sleeves up irritably. “No question. Just miffed at the thought of him having free access like this. Look at him, hand behind his back, hobnobbing with the crew like some condescending VIP. Damn him.”

“Would you rather he be left to the politicians? They’ve already shown their idea of diplomacy, no? I wouldn’t bet against his neck being stretched by Miss Polperro and those old sharks with sideburns.”

“Don’t be impertinent. The boy wants him here, so he stays. But I’ve got my eye on him. Mark my words, if he so much as belches a seditious-”

“All repairs to the cables and envelopes completed, Captain.” Tangeni clearly wanted to change the subject. She let it slide this time. No one else had heard, and from his combative demeanour she inferred Tangeni still held Embrey in higher regard than she did. Maybe she was treating the young marquess unfairly. Maybe he was made of truer stuff than his antecedents. But her family honour and her allegiance to the crown demanded she keep him at arm’s length. His very name forfeited his right to be presumed innocent. By dint of association, he was a traitor.

“Very well, unhook anchor stays and clear away,” she said. “Three-quarter engines, four points to port. Then steady on my mark.”

“Aye.”

As Tangeni relayed her commands, she ignored a solicitous stare from one of the gentlemen passengers, a young buck with a bandage over his brow who had politely offered his expertise in geology and botany to the expedition. Mr. Briory hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. He was dark-haired and a little overweight-the opposite of Embrey and therefore a safe choice-and she didn’t find him particularly attractive. He was guileless and sweet, though. She might have liked him before she’d joined the corps.

The Empress Matilda rose smoothly away from the derelict site, her ballonets taut and well-balanced. The propellers hummed at the stern, and white steam clouds billowed out of the port and starboard exhaust vents. Verity’s breath caught. The gorge behind Big Ben widened considerably a half mile westward-they had escaped a deadly abyss by an infinitesimal fraction in the vastness of time and space. In that regard, they had been fortunate. In many others, however “Captain! Water!” Reba hollered down from the bough nest-her basket affixed to the centre of the two lower cables joining the balloons. “Water off the port bow!” She mimed the breaststroke, indicating it looked deep and big enough to be either a sea or a large lake.

A hopeful glow lit Verity’s heart. She ran to the port bulwark and looked through her telescope. The gap in the forest stretched on past the escarpment for about a mile, forming a grassy bottleneck before it met a sudden decline, possibly a short cliff. The beach beyond appeared to be full of rocks and kelp. An impenetrable sea mist masked her view of the west past the tree line. To the east, a procession of large, lumbering creatures dominated the beach as the coastline curved northeast toward a region of flat, low-lying sediment. Three or four geysers spewed their hot vapour over the flatland, giving the region a torrid, inhospitable appearance.