Finches' Dilemma
Sunday, 17 Apr 1870
Command Gondola of Airship USAS Mohawk Star
En route to the Yucatan
9:40 pm, local time
As the flaming wreckage of the attacking vessel disappeared below them the air inside the cabin began to chill rapidly. The captain looked at the bedraggled group. "We have to set down. Y'all freeze if we stay up." She gave a glance to her engineer and navigator. "Start transferring gas back to the tanks, no more than 300 cubic yards per bag. If that don't work we'll have to vent, but I rather not. The folks down below aren't likely gonna be too forthcoming with their hydrogen." She checked her instruments before addressing the navigator. "15 degrees down-angle on all planes and set engine rotations for 1000 both port and starboard. Let's set down nice and easy. When we near 1000 feet we'll look for an open field."
Ariadne took Pieter's arm and snuggled in close. She could already see her breath frosting in the air. "Pieter," she whispered in is ear. "It's too quiet. I can't hear the engines as before."
For his part, Pieter had been too distracted to immediately notice the lack of noise. Ariadne had almost died twice in the past three days and while adventure was all well and good, he was pretty sure he was not well cut out for it. The harmonics of the propellers had been cut during the fight but now the distant base drone of Diesel was missing as well. He leaned in towards the front of the cabin, careful to provide as little disruption as possible. "Hrm. Captain?" he said quietly. "I thought the motors were not supposed to stop. The Diesel, I mean."
The burly engineer growled as he was moving aft. "They do when they have a grand piece of rod through them. Gosh-darn pirates pierced the Diesel. I'll see what can be done as you bring her down Captain. Or I'll move us to the steam."
The captain gave a quick nod and he was gone.
Ariadne bit her lip to curb the impulse to follow the engineer. Though her chief talents were the biological and chemical sciences, her insatiable curiosity knew no limits. In the few days they'd been aboard, she'd examined every inch of the airship she could manage. She thought of the burly man's ire if she insinuated herself unasked into his territory and stifled a sigh. She would hinder more than she helped. She squeezed Pieter's arm and let go of him to step forward.
"Captain," Aridane said. "I have two good hands to offer in service. Please put me where I may do the most good."
"And I can certainly be of service," Pieter said earnestly. "I have a great deal of experience with mechanisms of this sort and a considerable knack for repair work. I will go get my tools."
***
The engine room was aft of the passenger cabins and occupied the balance point of the ship. On the left hand side stood a massive VMS (Vickers, Maxim & Sons) triple expansion engine. To the right and smoking rather ominously sat the diesel engine. Acrid, yet penetrating fumes issued from a number of locations that indicated that repair would not be easy. The ship's engineer muttered curses in American that made Pieter suspect that it was an entirely separate language.
We have our work cut out us.
"I should go see what I can do to help."
Ariadne blushed at the language issuing from the engineer but bit her lip and followed her husband. After a moment, the shock wore off and Ariadne continued with confidence. The foul words flowed past her like a warm summer breeze and she paid it little mind.
"Pieter," she said. "Should I help fix the steam or the diesel engine?"
"Between the two, I should say that the diesel. The Vickers seems undamaged", Pieter said putting down his bag and stepping towards the fuming hulk. "The diesel may be past praying for, but we need to determine that first."
"All right." Ariadne gathered her skirts and moved to Pieter's side. "Tell me what you need me to do, dearest."
Pieter quickly surveyed mechanical carnage of the engine and the room and then closed his eyes for a moment to find the most vital damage. He turned slowly right and opened his eyes. "The main drive chain." He pointed upwards and to the right where a series of chains that connected the drive shaft of the engine to the propellers mounted in vertical rows on that side of the craft. "The chain is fouled somewhere near the second landing. Even once we get the engine turning, nothing on that side will turn until the chains are properly set into their sprockets. Can you do that?"
"Is that your right or my right, darling?" Ariadne asked, looking overhead to the left, then right, as she tried to get her bearings.
Pieter pointed towards the front of the ship with his right hand and to his right with his left. "The Ship's right of course."
"Ah! That would be starboard, dear." Ariadne's expression brightened. She chose a pry bar from her husband's tools and strode confidently for the nearest starboard ladder. She tucked up her skirts and slipped the pry bar into her skirt's waist band. "I shall be in place momentarily."
Pieter turned his attention back to the engine at hand. Due to the rather massive and solid construction of the engine most of the damage was superficial. A stray bullet or two had bounced off of the cylinder head, but caused no damage. Several hoses were leaking, but could likely be patched, either welded or glued.
Even with this, the engine was still in pain, an injury that Pieter did not see until he had walked to the other side. A metal bar, doubtless from somewhere above, had fallen into the engine, fouling the cam shaft and ripping a hole in the exhaust gas concentrator. Assuming the engine could be started, it could not turn and the room would quickly fill with hot, noxious fumes. It might be easy enough to fix, but would likely require removing the bar and then welding the pieces of the engine back together. Ideally, it should be done well away from explosive gas, somewhere on the ground where the parts could be moved away from the engine and then worked on.
I guess we need to fire up the Vickers.
"Ariadne, how goes the chain?"
"Almost there, darling," she called back. Ariadne had the pry bar firmly planted in the link of the chain and was currently levering it onto the gear teeth. She had to reach over her head to apply the bar and had already ripped the armhole seams in her bodice wide open. She ignored the damage and concentrated on getting the chain restored to its proper position.
Oh bother, the angle is all wrong. Try again.
Standing on tiptoe, she wedged the pry bar into a slightly different spot on the chain, and hauled down on the bar with all her weight. The wind shifted outside, buffeting the airship and making the gear chain move. The chain ratcheted several feet and took the pry bar with it … and Ariadne felt her feet leave the catwalk.
"Ohhhhhh … !" Ariadne squeaked, her booted toes flailing for footing that was no longer there. Worse, the chain had pulled her clear of the catwalk and a glance down confirmed it: Ariadne had nothing but thirty feet of empty air beneath her. She tightened her grip on the pry bar and scanned the area with her eyes, looking for anything she could reach to secure herself. The chain lurched again, pulling her farther from the catwalk as the links caught on the gears. Another lurch would carry the pry bar to the far side of the gear wheel and send it clear of the teeth … assuming the tremendous forces in play did not shear the pry bar or strip the gears. This is not the time to panic. Not yet, at any rate. "Pieter, darling? What amount of force would be required to cut cold forged steel in two?"
After a momentary surge of panic Pieter quickly cast about for his bubble gun.
Unlike yesterday, during his wife's unfortunate attempt to slide down the mooring rope, Ariadne was well within the range of his bubble gun and the weapon was still partially charged. Pieter set the dial for 40% helium, a gentle descent, and fired a shot.
"Dearest, please be more careful," Pieter called in loving exasperation.
"I shall try." Ariadne held still until the field enveloped her. When she was buoyed by it, she wiggled and pulled at the pry bar with a dainty grunt. The bar, no longer supporting her full weight, worked free. "There! That's got it!" The bubble allowed her to float gently down. When she had her feet on the deck again, she quickly rejoined her husband. Wisps of her brown hair escaped from her prim bun and her eyes sparkled above her pinking cheeks. She smiled and kissed Pieter on the cheek. "Thank you, darling. What shall I do next?"
Pieter had worked the metal shard free while he surveyed the rest of the engine. The cam is definitely going to need work. One of the lifting rods as well and something else … this aspirator …
"The damage to the diesel is non-trivial, I'm afraid," he said without looking up. "See what you can do about getting the boiler started. Once the water is warm, I think we should be able to coax enough energy from it to get us someplace that the captain can set us down."
"All right, dearest. Now, let us see …," Ariadne trailed off as she stepped up to the boiler. Its gauges lay dormant, all the needles at zero. She checked the fuel box and found it loaded with coal. She checked the water gauge and found it empty. She tapped the long glass tube gently, thinking perhaps an air bubble had prevented the water from showing.
Nothing happened.
She tapped it again. Still nothing. Frowning, she scanned the huge boiler for the water intake hatch. Spying it near the top, she scaled the ladder leading to it and spent a moment studying how the pressure locks and seals worked. Once she'd deciphered the procedure, she threw the locks and spun the wheel … and stared uncomprehendingly past the opened hatch at the contents inside.
It was empty of water. It was full of guns.
Oh my. That can't be right.
She heard a thump behind her to port, followed by a sigh from her husband. She so disliked disrupting his train of thought but truly, what she'd discovered needed his attention. She nimbly descended the ladder and rounded the boiler. "Pieter, I—."
She froze in her tracks and stared uncomprehendingly (again!) at the sight of her beloved Pieter sprawled gracelessly on the deck.
"Pieter?"
Someone grabbed her from behind. One meaty hand as large as a dinner plate clamped over her nose and mouth before she could scream as a rock-hard forearm tucked her throat inside an equally hard elbow … and started to squeeze. The blood in her head went thin and she heard the burly engineer murmur with regret.
"Sorry, lass. Yer dinnae meant tae see that."
Her air cut off and her heart beating frantically, Ariadne vainly tried to pull free but velvet blackness descended on her senses and the world fell away.
***
It took a moment for Pieter to recognize his situation. The last he recalled was working through the litany of repair work required to fix the diesel.
No, that was incorrect. Something had struck him: heavy, cylindrical, non-mechanical. It struck the left side of his head, some 2 inches toward the rear from his temple. Considerable pain still throbbed there.
He tried to open his eyes then soon thought the better of it and instead concentrated on his hands: Below him, behind him, bound to … a metal pipe and something in cotton lace.
"Ariadne?"
Ariadne. Pieter's voice sounded faintly through the warm black velvet swaddling her. She felt impossibly light and unbearably heavy at once. Unable to move, Ariadne floated between consciousness and unconsciousness, content to listen to her husband's voice for company. Ariadne, darling, please do wake up. Ariadne frowned. Pieter seemed upset. Why? She struggled to think, to move, to wake. Black sucking tar held her fast, the velvet surrounding her turned harsh and cold. Its chill went up her spine and solidified there … and she blinked awake to find her wrists handcuffed to her husband's, sitting back to back on the deck with a steel stanchion rising vertically between them.
Surprise made her hands fly to her face—or at least, they tried and her wrists were cruelly checked by the cuffs, making her yelp. Behind her, Pieter grunted.
"Do be gentle," he admonished softly.
"Oh, Pieter, I am so sorry," Ariadne said as memory caught up with her. She'd been … (Her mind shied away from the word attacked) … had been waylaid by the burly Scots engineer. I must keep my voice down. He might still be here. She continued considerably more quietly. "Are you all right, dearest?"
"Yes," he replied, a bit more hoarsely than expected. "But we do seem to be bound together."
"Till Death us do part, true, darling, but I don't think this is at all what the Vicar had in mind." Ariadne carefully moved her arms, mindful of Pieter's comfort. Her ripped sleeves were an unexpected advantage, giving her the wherewithal to move. Had she been a more sedate and conventional woman, the resulting intact seams would have cut the blood flow to her arms and left her numb from the shoulders down. As it was, the space taken up by her bustle and the fact her wrists were crossed before being cuffed to Pieter's quite stymied her efforts to pluck her emergency vials from her stash pocket. "Oh, bother it. Darling, I can't get at my vials to melt us free. Have you made any progress toward your liberation?"
"Not yet," Pieter said, lifting his left hand and craning his neck, then switching to his right side. "But if I can get a good look at the lock, I think I can convince it to let us go."
The right side bore fruit: German design, from the D.R.G.M. stamp, rusty nail mechanism. Stubborn, but willing to yield to a little force and some coaxing.
Strike that. Reverse it.
"Ariadne dear, I am going to strike my right wrist against the pipe, quite strongly I'm afraid. Just go along and I'll have us out in just a moment."
"Do be gentle," Ariadne said, pleased she could turn her husband's phrase back at him.
Pieter took one last look at the lock, concentrating on the pins that would need to rotate 1/16th of an inch counter clockwise to release the locking bar. You really want to rotate, just a bit, just for me. He raised his hand as best he could and imagined the perfect striking point where the cuff should meet the pipe. He held for a moment and the brought his hand down with as much force as he could muster.
The result was surprisingly less noisy and more painful than he expected, but a quick look showed that the task was accomplished.
Thank you.
Pieter worked his arm free and turned to kiss his wife."Let's go."
"Go, darling?" Ariadne grabbed her husband's hand and scrambled up from the deck, marveling at the ease with which she accomplished it. I shall rip out the armscyes of all my clothes for the advantage it grants me. Although something must be done about the unsightly edges that result … "We are grounded in the middle of nowhere, are we not? Where could we go? And—oh!," she stopped short as she remembered. "Pieter, I do not wish to alarm you but I suspect the events that have befallen us relate directly to what I've discovered in the boiler."
She lowered her voice and looked for the engineer's return, slipping her hand through the placket under her bustle where her vials were stashed. She would use them in her defense if necessary, however much it made her cringe: being rendered unconscious by the engineer's method frightened her more than she wished to admit.
"I'm sorry, Darling." She squeezed her husband's hand to direct his attention (and for the emotional comfort thus derived) and pulled him toward the boiler. "I am afraid I cannot describe it properly so you must see for yourself."
Having thus said it, she took her husband to do just that.
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