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‘That he had lied about Europa?’
‘Yes,’ I affirmed, deciding that I might as well get it all off my chest. ‘But it wasn’t an airship. It was a steamer. Before that, there was an even older Europa, just a sailing ship. Then we were north of Bergen. And we weren’t the same, either. You were there, I was there, so were the others, but we were different men.’ I frowned, struggling to convey my impressions while not wanting to sound totally unhinged. ‘Our names were the same, as well as aspects of our characters. You are always a man from Mexico, but the details of your life shift to suit the narrative.’
‘The narrative,’ he echoed.
‘You will think I am confusing my own flights of fancy with reality.’
‘I would.’ Then, after a silence: ‘Except that I have also been troubled by these recollections of different places and ships.’
I seized his sleeve as a drowning man seizes driftwood. ‘Tell me, Coronel!’
‘I do not think I am afflicted by them as badly as you.’ He touched a finger to his chest. ‘I know who I am, and what brought me here. But there are glimpses.’ He breathed heavily, pausing before he committed himself to my madness. ‘I remember that shoreline. I see flashes of it. I do not know how, but I remember it. You were hurt, and we faced annihilation together.’
I let out a sigh of immense relief. ‘If we are both losing our minds, then at least it is a delusion shared.’
‘Is it just us?’
‘I don’t know. There is something about Ada Cossile, and something about Dupin as well.’
‘With that fever, any man would struggle to tell reality from fiction.’
‘He would,’ I agreed. ‘But there’s also a remark he made, about operating on you with a trephination brace! I dismissed it – I wanted to dismiss it – but some horrible part of that chimes with my own recollections. I do remember a trephination brace. It came in a beautiful box, French-made. I can feel it between my fingers.’
‘I do not remember that,’ he said. ‘But I do have the impression I have owed my life to you more than once. That this …’ He rubbed the radium burn again. ‘That this is only the latest manifestation of that debt. Something odd is happening to us, Silas.’
‘Indeed.’
He looked around, searching for clues. ‘Could it be something in our water supply? A germ, causing hallucinations? Some kind of experiment in psychology being run on the whole crew? Are they whispering to us in our sleep, making us believe these things, to see how easily we snap?’
‘I don’t know. And who would “they” be, anyway?’
‘I do not know how we can pursue these questions.’
‘Nor I. But you have spoken to them all, and you probably know Topolsky as well as any of us. He seemed as surprised as anyone when I mentioned that pistol.’
Ramos dipped his head.
‘He did.’
‘As if he thought his secret was still safe. As if he could not imagine the means by which any man could have known about that Derringer.’
‘You do not think he has any recollection of these past episodes, even though he is in them?’
‘No, and the same goes for Mortlock, and as far as I’m aware Van Vught, Murgatroyd, Brucker and all the other airmen. That is the strange part, if any part may be said to be stranger than another. You and I figure in these episodes, and we are starting to retain some knowledge of them, however imperfectly.’ I shook my head in wonder at the craziness bubbling from my lips. ‘If you had not become the friend you are, Coronel, I would not have the courage to speak my mind. I hope we are not humouring each other for the sake of avoiding offence.’
‘No,’ he said sombrely. ‘It is real. But it would seem to affect us more than it does Topolsky, or indeed most of the other men.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘You mentioned Miss Cossile. What is it about her that arouses your suspicions?’
I smiled to myself, and wondered if he detected a trace of my amusement. She arouses in me rather more than suspicion …
‘She knows something. I cannot put my finger on it, but she stands apart from you, from me, even Dupin. It’s as if we are the players, and she is … the actor-director, the producer, something like that. She is always there when I die, and each time she seems … disappointed in me, for having the temerity to die.’
‘We all died on that shoreline.’
‘I know. And then we all came back again, including her.’
His fingers caressed the Derringer. ‘All the terms of our contract are suspended now. There would be nothing to prevent me questioning her, if we felt she held the key.’
I was surprised at his forthrightness: how easily he was willing to shift from protector to interrogator.
‘Question Miss Cossile?’
‘When the time is right,’ Ramos said.
From out in the night, we heard a scream that fell away to nothing.
A man had slipped during the construction of the suspended walkway. One of the cockily confident airmen, he had not bothered securing himself to any of the pitons. His fellows had watched his fall, helpless as he dropped into the void, arms flailing, screaming until there was no more breath in his lungs. They had heard him screaming long after the point where they lost sight of his falling form. The men had listened, and directed searchlights below, but there was no sound of him hitting anything and no trace of his body. It seemed probable that he was still falling.
After that, there were no more accidents.
Chapter Fifteen
The engines were running again, to charge up the batteries that ran the electrical circuits and provided energy for the searchlights. In the galley it was easy to think that we were still travelling, sailing under a starless night.
‘I have spoken to Master Topolsky,’ Captain Van Vught said, taking in all of us present. ‘He does not agree with his confinement, as is his right. But he has taken some consolation in my promise that we shall continue with the thrust of the expedition, for the sake of the men who came before us.’
‘Will you keep him locked up indefinitely?’ asked Brucker.
‘That will depend on what we find in the other airship: whether it magnifies or diminishes the scale of his lie.’ Then, to me: ‘The choice is yours, Silas, but if there are bodies inside that wreck, and too many for us to bring back, it might be some comfort to their relatives to know that a post-mortem examination had been conducted.’
The screaming of that falling man reverberated in my ears. I had looked out at the flimsy structure being strung across from Demeter, and begun to calculate the excuses which might keep me from traversing it. ‘I will gladly attend,’ I said. ‘But if anything can be said about the bodies, it may not be the sort of news that is welcomed.’
‘I am sure you will do your best, doctor.’ Van Vught glanced across the table. ‘You are in agreement, Herr Brucker? In so far as the expeditionary party retains any legitimacy, you would seem to be its natural spokesperson, in the absence of the Master?’
‘Jawohl,’ the industrialist agreed. ‘I would have hoped that Doctor Coade would accompany us as a matter of course. It will hardly be a safe undertaking for any of us.’
‘We will strive to take all precautions,’ Van Vught said. ‘You will have to take the minimum of medical supplies, I am afraid, Silas. The walkway is strong enough to take men, but only if they are spread out and not too heavily burdened. Miss Cossile: your typewriter will need to wait on Demeter.’
‘That’s all right, cap.’ She flicked out a pocket notebook and began to mime the jotting down of observations. ‘This gal came prepared, like any good scout.’ Then she gave me a nudge. ‘What about you, doc? Shouldn’t you be staying back here and working on what’s really important?’
‘There wouldn’t be much call for me here. Other than Dupin needing rest, which I can do no more than recommend, the crew remains in excellent health.’
‘Well, besides that poor dope who fell off the planks.’
I forced a strained smile. ‘A regrettable fatality, and one that I hope won’t be repeated.’
‘Actually, it wasn’t your patients I was thinking of,’ Miss Cossile persisted. ‘It’s your pulp pot-boiler, doc. I mean, your novel, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘Aren’t we committing a grave injustice against the world of letters by tearing you away from your composition?’
‘I am sure the world of letters will be quite indifferent either way. But thank you for your earnest concern for my – as you put it – pulp pot-boiler, Miss Cossile.’
‘How fares the work?’ asked Van Vught, with his usual polite but distant interest in my non-vocational activity, which he regarded as harmless but incomprehensible.
‘Well enough. But I fear nothing that I write will be able to compare with the reality in which we find ourselves.’
‘Surely your men of the Planetary Patrol won’t allow themselves to be outdone by our modest adventures?’ asked Murgatroyd. ‘They’re off rocketing through space, not floating around inside the Earth! You can’t leave us hanging, dear doctor.’
‘I’d say hanging is precisely what we are doing.’
‘Maybe it’s just me being ditzy, but I don’t even remember where we’d got to,’ said Miss Cossile. ‘Was the Space Dreadnought about to be over-run by the Frog Creatures, or were the Frog Creatures about to be annihilated by the Space Dreadnought?’
‘You’d remember if you didn’t keep making him change it,’ said Mortlock, blushing as he sprang to my defence. ‘I don’t mean any offence, miss, but if you’d just let him carry on with his yarn, instead of picking holes all the time, he’d have finished by now.’
I stiffened in the lightweight, fabric-backed chair. ‘It’s all right, Mortlock. I don’t mind Miss Cossile’s criticisms. In fact, I welcome them. If she didn’t have something to complain about, I would worry that I had inadvertently done something right.’
Miss Cossile nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s a doozy of a literary approach, that’s for sure. Some folks might say that answering reasonable objections in advance would spare you a barrel-load of scribbling down the road, but I guess that’s for you to decide.’
‘You are right,’ I said. ‘And in that regard, I am afraid that the weight of criticism – entirely reasonable criticism, indeed – forces me to beg an intermission.’
A collection of groans sounded around the table. Even Miss Cossile and Van Vught joined in, although in the former’s case I think it was more a case of disappointment at not being able to pick apart the latest instalment.
‘Now you are being quite merciless, ja!’ Herr Brucker exclaimed. ‘I desire to know what lies beyond the Thermal Barrier!’
‘Well said, Fritzie!’ applauded Miss Cossile. ‘We’re all of us just itching to know what’s on the other side of the Thermal … thingy.’
‘I am set in my decision,’ I said, with heavy finality.
Van Vught produced a contemplative rumble from somewhere deep in his throat. ‘That is settled, then. Before we adjourn, friends, perhaps a toast for the poor man who lost his life a few hours ago?’
‘Indeed,’ I said, glad not to be the centre of attention.
Van Vught leaned in to his senior officer. ‘What was the fellow’s name again, dear friend?’
By morning watch the walkway had been extended across the entire four hundred feet which separated us from the wreck of Europa. A telephone line had been reeled out along its length, facilitating communications across the gap. More importantly, the gangway had been tested, with groups of men going back and forth with heavier and heavier packs. Assurances were provided that it was now safe enough for the expeditionary party, or the rump which remained of that doughty cadre.
The party consisted of Herr Brucker, Ramos, Miss Cossile, Murgatroyd, Mortlock and myself. Topolsky remained locked up. Dupin had wanted to come, but I had insisted that the boy stay in bed, and for once I had been listened to.
Our equipment organised, we set off, climbing up through the envelope to the upper walkway, then onto the walkway itself.
No part of that crossing was pleasant. A constant dread of falling chased me with every step we traversed, but it was completed without incident to any member of the party. For my own part the blackness assisted. With an effort of will I found I could pretend that it was a solid surface pressing in on us like a coal seam, rather than an absence of matter. Four hundred miles had felt less than those four hundred feet, but once I completed it, I knew I could go back to Demeter, and that terror at least lost a fraction of its sting.
That was not to say that the last part was easy. Europa was of a different design to Demeter, with a single gas-filled envelope rather than a tubular envelope strung with individual lift cells. This precluded getting into her from above by any means except climbing down a chain of ladders that had been carried across the walkway and lashed to the outer fabric of her envelope. Although we were each of us roped securely as we descended the ladders, the illusion I had been able to force upon myself while crossing the ceiling was now thoroughly shattered. The last of the ladders was even on an overhang, so that my head extended out further than my feet. Regardless of the unknowns facing us inside the wreck, it was a relief to find myself in the relative shelter of her gondola, where there were at least screens of metal and wood to place the void at one remove.
The gondola had buckled along its length, its windows had shattered outwards, and its control gear been severed and tangled beyond any hope of repair. But there was no part of it that we could not reach, and after assuring ourselves – to the best of our confidence – that the fabric of the craft still had sufficient integrity to support our weight, we crept aboard with the light-footedness of cat burglars, not wanting to disturb so much as a grain of dust.
We had not expected to find survivors, and there were none. Nor were there bodies to be found. Our first search was thorough enough, but on the second we searched every cupboard and locker, and the story was the same. Since the airship’s crew could not possibly have crawled back across the ceiling and up the fissure without leaving evidence of their own ropes and attachments, only two possibilities remained: they had fallen into the void, perhaps preferring that to a slow, drawn-out death; or they were somewhere within the Edifice.
Levering open a box of supplies, Murgatroyd cast doubt on the first possibility.
‘We know from the berths that their crew numbered six, which seems about right for an airship of this size.’ He dipped his hand through the cartons and tins still in the box. ‘These rations would’ve kept them going for many more weeks, if they were careful. Condensed milk, coffee, chocolate: it nearly puts us to shame. There’s potable water for ballast, too, and plenty of it.’
‘If they knew there was no escape,’ Brucker said, ‘would it matter to them that their rations were not yet exhausted? I think not. Their fate would have been the same, ja?’
‘It wouldn’t matter to logical men, sir, but how many of us are ruthlessly logical? If these fellows thought they could hang on for a few days more, they’d have done so, right until the last drop.’
Brucker shook his head, disappointed at such speculation.
‘The Germanic mind would have accepted the cold facts. Better death with honour, ja, than an undignified scramble for the last drop of sustenance.’
‘Good job we haven’t all got Germanic minds, then,’ Murgatroyd said.
Before a second Great War broke out among our party I examined their other supplies, including their medicines. All the essentials were still present, and in tolerably useful quantities. Some of it, indeed, could be ferried back to Demeter, to augment my own stocks. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste.
‘We must face the inevitable, then,’ I said. ‘If these men did not fall, and there is no reason for them all to have fallen, then they went into the Edifice next to us. We ought not be surprised. It has drawn both our expeditions here, moths to the same flame.’
‘I’m not sure I fancy being a moth,’ Mortlock said.
‘Let us see what traces they left after their departure,’ Brucker said. ‘Logs, diaries and so forth. And let us see what equipment we should expect to find on an expedition of this nature, but which is absent. That will tell us what they have taken with them, ja.’
Murgatroyd opened one of the cabinets we had already examined on our first sweep. Inside were six lightweight boxes each about the size of a small trunk.
‘I saw these as we were going through, but didn’t think to open them,’ he said, taking out one of the boxes and setting it down on a fold-out table. ‘It feels empty to me, but we ought to check.’
‘Model Thirteen High-Altitude Respiration Apparatus,’ Brucker said, reading the printed label affixed to the box lid.
The container was indeed empty, as were the others.
‘I searched the other lockers,’ Murgatroyd said, ‘and there’s no sign of cold-weather garments either. They’d have brought them, for sure.’
‘Then they left wearing that equipment,’ I said. ‘The air in this void is thicker than the air at sea-level, so there was no real need for respirators. But perhaps they were taking precautions for what they might encounter in the Edifice. Who knows what foul airs might be trapped in that thing?’
Ramos was drawn back to the empty box as if there was a clue in it that the rest of us had missed. He ran his fingers over the label, mouthing a word to himself.
‘Trece.’
‘What is it?’ I asked softly.
‘Trece, Silas. Thirteen.’ In the same low tone he added: ‘I feel as if I have been troubled by this before.’
Some memory prickled against my consciousness. ‘Trece y cinco. Thirteen and five. You said that to me, once.’ I frowned at the box. ‘We have the thirteen, but where is the five?’
‘I cannot say. But I do know that this is not coincidence.’
A voice interjected brightly: ‘Having fun, boys?’
I could not say how long the reporter had been at my side, or how much of my exchange with Ramos she had overheard. ‘I do not know if fun is quite the word I would choose. Or that it is fitting, in a place where brave men have perished.’
