She collapsed onto the floor and stared at the damaged brass rim.

  “I’m sorry, Verity.”

  She brushed his hand away. They sat in stunned silence. The gentle echo-popping sounds of droplets on lapping water, the whir of the dynamo, and Verity’s quiet sniffles conspired to deafen his thoughts. Finally he rose to his knees. “Okay, we did what we set out to do, so where do we go from here?”

  “To hell, I hope.”

  “All right, but then where?”

  “Remind me to kill that pompous bastard when we make it back.” She thumped the copper wall.

  “Who? Reardon?” No reply. “Granted, but how-”

  “How the buggery did you think we were going to get back?” Verity’s shout pierced his already aching ears. “For God’s sake, get out of my way.” She pushed him aside and snatched up what looked like a hollow telephone receiver on the end of a hose. She spoke into it, waited for a reply.

  “And they’ll haul us up?”

  “Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “Shut up and don’t speak to me again.”

  Embrey waited until her face was downturned and then flicked her a mocking salute. He drank a few cupped handfuls of fresh water from the moon pool. It tasted crisp, marvellous.

  Then he recoiled, remembering what swam down there, and what might appear again at any moment…

  Over twenty minutes later, with no reply from the Empress, Verity leapt up and turned her back to him. “Help me off with this thing.”

  Words he’d give anything to hear under any other circumstance.

  “We’re swimming the rest of the way?” he asked.

  “No choice, I’m afraid.”

  The chilling finality hit him. Something had happened on the surface, and if it worried someone like Verity… “We could wait a bit longer, see if they-”

  “No. We’ve waited long enough,” she said.

  “But what if it’s just a problem with the communication cable? Say something bit through it. They’ll hoist us up after a set time has elapsed without word, surely.”

  Verity’s dripping hair appeared almost gunmetal brown in the dimming light. “Yes, and that time has elapsed.” She wound the dynamo once more. “The auxiliary diver checks in every five minutes. After fifteen without contact, the deck crew automatically begins hoisting. Trust me, Embrey, we are on our own. Whatever happened to Djimon may have happened to the Empress as well. Now get this thing off me.”

  He obeyed, but the thought of finding an empty deck-he’d left Billy and Reardon up there, for Christ’s sake-turned his stomach. Even the sight of Verity in her underwear served only to remind him of how vulnerable they were and how much he needed this ordeal to be over. He wasn’t Garrett Embrey right now-he was simply another creature in the primordial soup, snatching at survival. Nothing else mattered.

  She helped him out of his clingy suit and they both peered into the moon pool.

  “Remember to exhale steadily all the way up.” Her words were soft, distracted.

  “I will.”

  “I’ll take the clock part.”

  “No, the strongest swimmer should carry it.”

  Verity blinked at him, her pink-and-white face elfin and beautiful. “Embrey, I do this for a living.”

  “But I haven’t done a damn thing to help on this dive. At least let me take this risk for you.” He picked up the kaleidoscope and slid into the water, gauging her reaction.

  Verity shook her head slowly.

  He sighed, then handed her the clock part. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

  “Crazy fool. You’d never have made it like that anyway.” She cut a length of rope, tied one end to the gadget and the other to her ankle.

  “Ah.”

  She gently splashed his face. “Don’t look back, omafimbo odula. Whatever happens, kick until you taste home. I’ll be with you all the way.”

  “Promise?”

  After her quick nod, he took three deep breaths and submerged. He kicked away from the bell, confident that he could swim the breadth of an ocean if Verity were beside him. He climbed with a muscular stroke, never doubting, never looking back. The cream umbilical cable stretched forever upward. Lighter hues flickered above him like an emerald stampede on a glass ceiling.

  He finally surfaced, gasping for his life on the starboard side of the Empress. Verity sprang up beside him, equally spent. But no one greeted them from the open hatches across the bulwark or through the porthole windows.

  “Remember, we’ve surfaced far too quickly after such a long dive,” she said. “It’s dangerous. If you should start to feel sickly, use the oxygen canister or drink plenty of-Look! The bow!” She pointed him to a dent in the iron plane, then to several harpoons floating near the stern, still attached to their lines. “They’ve been attacked all right. Ahoy! Kibo! Anyone aboard? ”

  Embrey yelled with her but they received no response.

  “Come on.” She urged him to swim after her. “They may have abandoned ship.”

  “Yes, and it must have been for a good reason,” he called after her, but she didn’t stop. “Hey, wait for me.”

  As they climbed aboard, spilling streams as they crept, the empty ship groaned. She set the kaleidoscope down on the quarterdeck. Blood speckled the deck around two of the open starboard hatches and one of the port ones as well. One of the two lifeboats was also missing.

  Embrey noticed a V shape floating off the starboard bow. It appeared heavy, as it didn’t bob with the undulating lake. He glanced at the erect davits that had lifted the lifeboat over the side, then at the V shape again. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

  She gave a deep sigh. “I’m afraid so.”

  “How many would it have held?”

  “All of them, Embrey. God help us, I think we’ve lost them all.”

  Chapter 13

  Prehistoric Campfire

  How a mission could at once be successful and yet fail so utterly tore Verity’s thoughts in two as she wandered B-deck, trying to figure out the chain of events leading to this disaster. For one, the iron rig for the bell winch was bent, which explained why the crew hadn’t been able to hoist them up. But why was it bent? Had the leviathan they’d faced on the lake bed become snagged in the umbilical somehow? Had that same monster attacked the Empress out of spite? Perhaps it had the ability to leap out of the water, as high as the ship’s deck. With the dinosaur’s sixty-foot length, that wasn’t much of a stretch.

  Broken rifles and smashed harpoon launchers described a desperate last stand. The bulwark was damaged around virtually every open hatch, so the leviathan had to have attacked repeatedly on all sides. And poor little Billy. What a horrible nightmare for such a young boy. She should have insisted he and Reardon stay on A-deck with Tangeni.

  A bitter welling in her throat made her swallow hard several times but it was no use.

  This was her fault, her unforgivable blunder.

  Without Reardon, it’s all been for nothing.

  She ran to the nearest open hatch and threw up over the side.

  “How long before Tangeni returns?” Embrey asked.

  “Until we signal. He’ll keep circling until we signal.”

  “I don’t see him.”

  Verity spat the noxious taste from her mouth and wiped her lips. “You will. But it’s all for nothing now.” They would have to survive here until they died, in this prehistoric nether-world, with no hope of seeing home ever again.

  “Nothing we could have done, Verity. It was only a matter of time.” His glistening Adonis physique seemed alien, a mirage. Seeing his full collar-to-hip scar for the first time made her feel a little sorry for him-he’d been through so much and had worked tirelessly to protect the others, and for what? “I daresay fate was set against us the minute we arrived,” he said. “It was a forlorn hope after all.”

  “And a cruel twist. It didn’t have to end like this. We could have-”

  “ Garrett! You made it!”

  They both spun toward the engine room at the stern. Men in blue uniform filed out, elated and self-congratulatory, as though part of some obscene April Fool’s prank. It took a moment for Verity to register the change of events. If these crewmen had been here all along, why hadn’t they answered her calls? But then-she hadn’t called since climbing aboard…

  “Garrett!” Young Billy sprinted for his half-naked guardian, and Embrey flung his arms around the boy and lifted him high. Still she couldn’t quite take it in. Had the undersea pressure affected her more than she realised? Yet, seeing Professor Reardon appear at the engine room door, his shirt sleeves rolled up and bloody, plucked her heart and made it thrum.

  Their dive had not been for nought. Djimon’s sacrifice had lasting worth, and she need despair no more. Even Kibo emerged from his engine room, still impeccably dressed, striding like a victorious gambler.

  “ Eembu, I knew you’d make it.” He shook her hand. His impressive grin made her puff and exhale with nervous relief. The habit of command dictated she retain a measure of composure at all times, but damn it if she couldn’t cry out with joy. Another crewman-Kwame-draped a windproof jacket over her.

  “Thank you, thank you.” She cleared her throat, oddly embarrassed by all the attention. “Embrey and I achieved our goal, but,” and her high jinks sank, “we lost Djimon, I’m afraid.”

  Kibo winced and looked away to the sunken lifeboat. “Then his spirit joins another three of our number, and Mr. Briory was killed, as well.”

  “No. What happened?”

  “Let us reach shore first, then I will describe our ordeal. Stay clear of the sides, you men.” He scolded two of his engine crew, then led Verity to the buckled bell winch. “I think we should cut the bell loose, Eembu. There is no way to hoist it up, and the only reason I didn’t cast if free and head back to shore is because you were still down there.”

  Verity gently squeezed his arm. “You did well, my friend. Grace under pressure, that’s what I like to see.”

  “I am sorry Djimon won’t be with us. The whole crew liked his…affableness-is that the correct word?”

  She smiled. “Close enough, brother. That’s close enough. Now go ahead, get us underway. Have Kwame and MacDonald cut the bell hose.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Meanwhile, Reardon wrapped the brass clockwork in his waistcoat and hurried it back to the safety of the engine room, pausing only to compliment Verity on her “brave show, which may have saved all our necks.”

  “You’re welcome, Profess-” But he was already out of earshot, deep in consternation. After all, there was no guarantee the intricate part hadn’t been damaged beyond repair.

  Billy tugged her jacket down until she matched his height, and then hugged her for the longest time. Such a sweet, affectionate boy-he reached for Embrey’s hand and pulled him down to share the embrace. An extraordinary pang of contentment, fleeting though it was, made her feel…complete somehow. Alive and unguarded. Embrey’s hand nestled on the back of her neck, and her heart began to thump, thump, thump…

  “You jus’ described that exact same ’un what attacked us.” Billy flicked to the appropriate page in his dinosaur book. “Lio-pleu-ro-don-that’s how Cecil says it. Big paddle-like limbs and massive, strong jaws like a crocodile, only it were a lot bigger than what it says in ’ere.”

  “We estimated between fifty and sixty feet, didn’t we?” Verity turned to Embrey. He wasn’t really listening, and instead watched with fascination the re-coupling of A and B decks. Tangeni had begun his descent, and as B-deck was now moored on the lake shore, this promised to be a routine attachment. Verity’s men had already raised the guide spars to catch A-deck’s descending hull. The airship’s link chains dangled ready to be caught and locked into position. Her only concern was that the liopleurodon attacks had bent the bulwarks out of shape-a misalignment of the two decks meant they could not be cranked back into place together. The Empress Matilda might be divorced for good.

  “Whose idea was the lifeboat, Billy?” She’d already heard the tale from Kibo but wanted to keep the youngster’s attention. The re-coupling was a deafening procedure-iron clanking and scraping on iron-and to a child, the sudden claustrophobic weight that bore down upon B-deck might be a frightening experience.

  “Um, it were Cecil’s idea.” The lad blankly poured over the pages of his book. “After two men were snatched, ’e reckoned we had to do somethin’ quick. That bloody lio-pleu-ro-don kept jumpin’ out of the water, bashin’ against the side of the ship. ’E smashed us underwater an’ nearly capsized us. That’s when it got them first ’uns-them two aeronauts-they slid to the hatches and the monster got ’em.” He glanced up at Verity, then gripped the bell house rail next to Embrey as B-deck’s hull darkened the sky. “So Cecil said we should rig a lifeboat with some hydrogen canisters an’ let the monster attack it. Hydrogen explodes, see. ’E wanted the other men to shoot the canisters while the dinosaur were attackin’ that lifeboat.” Billy’s storytelling grew nervous and rapid. “But it were over with too quick an’ nobody got a shot off before the boat were sunk. Next time we were tipped on our side, Briory rolled into the bugger’s jaws an’ we never saw ’im again.”

  Clank, clank went the airship’s hull onto the guide spars as Verity’s men rushed about fastening the link chains into place. B-deck scraped into position simply enough, and the Empress groaned as she leaned to one side under the extra weight.

  Embrey gave her an appreciative nod, as if he hadn’t been convinced the re-coupling could work, before joining the aft capstan team to crank the decks together once and for all.

  She sent Billy to Reardon in the engine room, out of harm’s way, and then rotated the forward capstan with her last remaining crewmen. The final clank of a Gannet’s re-coupling usually heralded several hearty huzzahs. This time, dead silence.

  She sighed as the whole ship lifted from the beach. Gallons of purged ballast thundered from A-deck into the kelpy shallows. She’d lost many good men these past few days-far too many. At this rate, would anyone be left alive to make the time jump?

  Snuggled alone in the bough nest, a single blanket cushioning his backside from the cold metal floor, Embrey wrapped his arms around his knees and took in the spectacular prehistoric sunset. At this soundless height, where only creaks from the balloon canopies kept him company, the vastness of this unvisited world stretched eerily in every direction. Neither car horns nor clattering hooves nor the bark of a feral dog emerged from London’s streets as he watched. He was truly some place he should not be.

  Before mankind would rise to prominence, the entire known lifespan of Mount Everest had to unfold. According to Reardon, the number of days from here to 1908 was comparable to the number of stars in a small galaxy. And unless the machine worked, they would all die before the first rose ever spread its petals. This was so long ago, even romance didn’t exist.

  The police chase through the storm seemed an epoch ago. Hell, Reardon’s accidental intervention had occurred in the nick of time…the literal nick of time. Unspeakable, yes, but fortuitous all the same. Given the choice between being hanged for treason or lost in a forgotten world, he was perhaps the only one, apart from Reardon, who’d secretly thanked his lucky stars for this accident.

  “Ahoy, night owl.” A woman’s voice made him jump.

  “Who goes there?”

  Verity poked her head up over the rail. “First the depths, now the clouds? We really need to keep our feet on the ground, Embrey.”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “What are you?” She climbed into the nest and crouched opposite him-to bring bad news? Berate him for coming up here without her permission?

  “For some peace and quiet,” he said. “I fancied soaking up a little prehistoric magic-you know, before the back-breaking begins. This looked as good a spot as any.”

  “I never pegged you for a deep-thinking fellow, Embrey.”

  Seeing her dressed once more in her safari outfit-blouse, flared jodhpurs, half chaps and boots-quickened his pulse and recalled the time he’d seen her climbing the steps outside her cabin, in those last promise-filled moments before she’d turned on him. But that feud had been her doing, her prejudice. He’d done nothing except bear an innocent family name.

  “You look worried,” she said. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Not exactly-well, not recently-”

  She sighed, blinking her big, inscrutable hazel eyes. Embrey loved the way her lace cuffs, too big for her wrists, flapped in the breeze. But there wasn’t even the hint of an apology forthcoming. Not good enough.

  “Things were said that can’t easily be forgotten. First you humiliated me in front of the entire congregation, then you insulted Father-without even bothering to hear my story.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You ass! I came up here in-”

  “If you’ll let me finish- for Christ’s sake- I simply meant to say, I would like a chance to finally explain myself. You’ve heard one side of the story, the poisoned version, and yet you carry on half-cocked and continually ridicule me in public. I’ll not stand for it a moment longer.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, and I suppose my half-cocked rescue when you fell over the side counts for nothing? Those insults-they may have been hasty.”

  “Are you saying you no longer hold my family responsible?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Then allow me to speak my piece. You need to be enlightened.”

  “Ha! Please, by all means, enlighten me, Your Worship.” Her snootiness knew no bounds, but if he were in her position, he might very well react with the same scepticism.

  “Very well,” he said. “You suffered a terrible loss in Benguela. And you understandably accepted the official story of my father’s collusion in the rebel attack. Not a single newspaper anywhere in the empire, to my knowledge, printed a dissenting article.” He paused to catch his breath. “But when you’ve known a man as closely and for as long as I knew my father, when his unblemished military record and love for the empire are unquestioned by everyone who knew him well, when Britannia’s prosecuting arm is twisted behind her back by a notoriously corrupt body like the Leviacrum Council, when evidence is demonstrably falsified and then whisked from further public scrutiny to ensure a quick execution, you can understand why I no longer have any love for the empire.”

 

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