Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Detective

“How many levitators does a vessel like this carry, Captain?” DeGarre asked.

“Or, strictly speaking, how many levitators carry a ship like this?” replied Schten. Delighted with his wit, he reached once again for his glass.

“As you say,” said DeGarre, with the sort of smile normally employed in the patronisation of idiot children. “How many?”

Schten paused, glass halfway to his lips. “Eh?” His eyes wandered in their orbits as he reengaged his attention. “The levitators? Oh, there’re two batteries of eight.”

“Parallel or cross-linked?”

“Ah … cross-linked. Much safer.”

“Much more expensive, too.”

Schten opened his arms in about as expansive a gesture as he dared without knocking DeGarre and Lady Ninuka off their chairs. “She’s not exactly a scow, mein Herr .”

DeGarre nodded. “She is impressive. I wonder, may I see more of her, please?”

“I’m sorry?”

“May I see a little of her beyond the doors marked ‘Crew Only’?”

Schten paused, uncertain. “Well, it’s not company policy to give guided tours. The bridge is not spacious — ”

“Please, Captain. I would be deeply obliged. As for the bridge, you need not concern yourself on that. One bridge is much like another. No, I’d much rather take a look at your engineering section, if I may. Just to see how the art has moved on since I retired.”

Schten wavered. Company rules and reasonable behaviour were doing battle within him. The impetus to make his decision one way or another was provided, unexpectedly, by Alexei Cacon. “Oh, you might as well, Captain,” he said as he chased the last of his peas around the plate. “The whole boat’s going to be full of greasy Senzans getting their mucky fingerprints over everything, and they won’t be saying ‘please.’ Herr DeGarre’s a gentleman at least. Why should they do anything they like, and he can’t even have five minutes looking at your spinny things upstairs?”

Schten ignored the reference to his ship as a “boat” and said, “It’s not that easy, I’m afraid, Herr Cacon. I don’t want to set a precedent.”

“Give him his guided tour, Captain,” said Lady Ninuka, in a voice that might have been gifted to her by the Lorelei and a very good elocution teacher. “I, for one, promise not to ask for a similar privilege.”

“Nor I,” added Miss Ambersleigh, which earned a disdainful glance from Lady Ninuka that seemed to say, “As if that were likely.”

“Nor me neither,” said Cacon, finally cornering the errant peas and spearing them on his fork amidst a pizzicato of dinner silver on china.

There was a general round of muttered agreements. Captain Schten gave in with good grace, and arrangements were made for the following afternoon. For his part, Cabal slightly regretted that he wouldn’t get a chance to see the engineering deck for himself. He had an interest in machinery of the metallic as well as the fleshly form.

Cacon’s long-awaited pudding — dessert seemed an altogether too feminine term — turned up as the next course. There was a limited choice between the famous Mirkarvian dish, tschun — which not only sounds like a sneeze but looks like it — and cheese and biscuits. Almost everybody, even the Mirkarvians, opted for cheese and biscuits. The cheese was fierce enough to strip a layer of tissue from the palate, but it was still preferable to the alternative. Cabal, however, had an unlooked-for opportunity to see tschun at close quarters, as Cacon was the only one to order it. Served in a long shallow dish, it looked and smelled like partially fermented milk, with an island of something slightly too large-grained to be sago sitting in the middle of it. Scattered across this island was a red stain of blended cinnamon and pepper. Cacon tucked into it with noisy enthusiasm. “Put hairs on your chest this will, old son,” he commented to Cabal. Cabal failed to see how this could be regarded as an advertisement, particularly with respect to female diners.

Finally, they reached the time for coffee, Cognac, and cigars. The ladies retired, Miss Barrow giving him a meaningful look as she did so, and the gentlemen wandered down toward the salon. Cabal felt constrained to attend the ritual, but first made his apologies that he would be a few minutes. The same interfering steward who had placed him beside Miss Barrow now directed him to the nearest “head,” which Cabal understood to be a slang or technical term for the toilet. He thanked the steward, though he had no intention of using it; he just wanted a little time to himself to gather his wits. He made his way instead to the starboard promenade, the better to find some fresh air filtering through the external vents there.

The promenades ran down either side of the ship on Deck B, the storage and supply deck. No passengers bunked on this level, so the rooms had no portholes, only thin windows set high in their walls to let in light from the promenades. These were accessible only via stairs from Deck A — first class — at both their fore and aft ends, and ran most of the length of the vessel. Wide glazed windows angled out in a shallow horizontal arc running almost the length of the ship to allow walkers to lean over the rail and gaze down at the hoi polloi without having their hair unduly disturbed. It was a far more scenic route from the dining room to the salon than going via the internal corridor on Deck A, but not nearly as expeditious, and Cabal was unsurprised that none of the other men climbed the stair with him, such was the lure of coffee, brandy, and tobacco.

He was hoping for a few minutes of solitude, but here he was to be disappointed. The petulant Herr Zoruk was there, hands on the rail by the windows, deep in thought, though more probably self-pity. He looked up when he heard Cabal turn the corner, denying Cabal the chance to withdraw unseen. It was an awkward situation where neither man wanted to be in the presence of the other, but manners prevailed. Cabal found a place perhaps a metre away from Zoruk at the rail, and looked out into the night.

There was silence for some moments, then Zoruk said, “I suppose I made rather a damn fool of myself tonight.”

“Yes,” said Cabal.

Zoruk shot him a slightly startled look. “You call a spade a spade, don’t you?”

“It saves time. I am not noted for my diplomatic skills.”

“But you’re a civil servant?”

“But not one in the diplomatic service. I deal in facts, Herr Zoruk, and the fact is, yes, you made a fool of yourself tonight.”

Zoruk started to say something, but the will to do so left him in a defeated sigh. He turned back to the window. “I know he’s right, that’s the worst of it. You can’t blame a man for making a bullet if that bullet is later used to kill a saint. I knew that, or I would have if I’d taken a minute to think. I was just so angry. The Desolée Suppression … words cannot …” He shook his head. “I’m being a fool again.”

“I … am not very politically aware,” said Cabal, choosing his words carefully. “In my post, I deal with figures, disbursements, quotas, and reports. Sometimes things happen in the broader world” — he gestured at the dark earth beneath them — “and I remain ignorant of them, often to my shame. Herr Zoruk, what exactly is the Desolée Suppression? What did this Von Falks do?”

Zoruk looked at him, an odd look of mild suspicion and surprise, and Cabal wondered if his curiosity was going to cost him dearly. “You live in a sterile, isolated little world, Herr Meissner,” said Zoruk. “I almost envy you. Very well … the Desolée Suppression; history lesson. You probably picked up most of the story from the dinner table. The Guasoir Valley was Priskian by right of the Treaty of Hollsberg, but the locals have always regarded themselves as culturally Dulkine. They complained about it, and especially the Priskian policy of forcible relocation and the shipping in of Priskian settlers, but nobody was listening. So they started with civil disobedience, but all that got them was a few broken heads and some unjustifiably heavy prison sentences.”