Ganymede

Текст добавлен: 21 сентября 2016, 15:02

Текст книги "Ganymede"

Автор книги: Cherie Priest

Соавторы: Cherie Priest

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“There’s nothing to be done about the weather,” Yaozu said graciously. “At any rate, if you’re not otherwise occupied, I’d appreciate your company up at the fort. I’ve summoned a handful of men to help with the loading and unloading, but you’re the one who knows what’s what in your cargo bay.”

Cly echoed his phrasing. “Otherwise occupied? Uh, no. Not right this second. I can take an hour or two to help you get all your gear in order.” That’s what he’d told Briar, after all. An hour or two. Though he determined on the spot that he was not going to hang around and be helpful for even one minute longer than that.

“Excellent. Walk with me, Captain.”

“Sure. Listen, there’s something you should know. Maybe you’ll care, and maybe you won’t,” he said, adjusting his pace to walk with the shorter man, whose legs could not comfortably match his long stride. “It’s about the sap, and what it’s doing outside the city.”

“I already know about the gas, and those Mexicans in Utah.”

“Sure. But have you heard about the zombis in New Orleans?”

Seventeen

Josephine held her breath and aimed.

She exhaled slowly as the zombi moseyed behind a stack of crates outside the warehouse down at the river’s edge. This was the same warehouse she’d visited once before, following the two Texian officers – and then, of course, she’d been saved from potential disaster by Marie Laveau, may she rest in peace. But Marie could not save her now. Marie was beyond saving anyone anymore, and it was almost as if the zombis knew it.

Josephine would not have said it out loud, but it was hard not to notice, and not to wonder at how the riverbanks were more dangerous now than before the Queen had passed on despite Texas’s efforts to the contrary. Patrols ran every night, in three shifts. Texian soldiers and Texian guns picked off the dead men by the score, leaving everyone to wonder just how many of the things, precisely, had been running around all this time.

Every morning there were more bodies, more corpse-corpses. Some of the zombies were recognized, named, and taken away. Most were not. Most of them were burned down to charred black scraps, and if anything was left, it was buried. Or else, the nasty remnants were dumped into the ocean – where everything eventually rusts, or warps, or is eaten away by carrion-seekers small and large.

They must be managed now, before they become unmanageable.

These days, or at least these curfewed nights, Josephine had started lighting candles and praying to no one in particular that it wasn’t already too late.

Then she’d pick up Little Russia and don unfancy clothes, adding a dark brown cloak. She’d meet her escort downstairs at the door, and he’d flash his badge again and again to see them both past the anxious watchmen who kept the Quarter under lock and key between dusk and dawn.

Together, they would go down to the river, to the warehouses, to the edges of the territory trawled by the organized boys in brown – with their rolling-crawlers and air support, their well-drilled sharpshooters and lookouts. They worked the fringes as a team, without the tactical advantage of numbers … but between them, they did their part to keep the things contained.

And to study them, and discuss their theories, their suspicions.

Tonight, like every night, the warehouse was dark.

Its huge double doors – built to accommodate ship-repairing cranes and equipment – had rotted and fallen off, and now lay flat and fragmented across the pier, leaving the interior exposed to the elements.

And to the zombis.

A pair of them wandered back and forth, wheezing as they shambled, seemingly in search of nothing at all – and, finding nothing, they merely changed their path and searched for nothing once more, in another direction. Josephine could see them from her vantage point atop an old shipping container, upon which she had lain down flat on her belly … all the better to alternately watch the riverbank and its forlorn, collapsing buildings through a spyglass, and over the edge of Little Russia’s barrel. Three other zombis were milling about, lurching and sagging, coughing and hunting.

She shuddered. She shook her head, braced her elbows, and closed one eye.

“Be patient,” whispered her companion.

She scrunched her eyes shut and resisted the urge to hit him. “I know,” she said instead, through gritted teeth. “And I am.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to get your dander up. I’m just trying to tell you that if you give this one on the left a minute or two, I think it’ll circle back around. You might be able to hit ’em both with one bullet.”

He was right, and she almost hated him for it – except that the implication of his suggestion was that he believed she was capable of making the kind of shot that could knock down two zombis at once. And that was no small measure of flattery, coming from a Texian.

She relaxed, very slightly. She returned her attention to the scene before her, illuminated mostly by moonlight flickering off the river, and by two skinny gas lamps that were too far away to do anything but stretch the shadows.

Josephine said, “I’ll take those two, and you pick off the ones hanging out on the right. If you don’t clip that big one soon, he’s going to topple clean over. That’ll mean a point scored for an alligator, and not for you.”

“I didn’t realize we were keeping score.”

“Everybody keeps score, Ranger Korman. Right now, I’m ahead by two. But if you can strike all three of the dead men on your right side, then you’ll only be down by one. I daresay you’ll catch up again, once we move down the block.”

He made a harrumphnoise that wiggled his mustache, and he used his free hand to adjust his hat – lifting the brim up out of the way so he’d have a clearer line of sight. “I think maybe you’ve miscounted.”

“I think maybe you don’t like the idea of being beat by a woman.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Keep your voice down, Ranger, or neither of us will do any better tonight. Look, here they come around again, like toys on a track. Not a brain left in their heads, I swear to high heaven.” She took another breath, held it in, and exhaled slowly.

Then, as the zombis staggered into position – that critical point when two were both in the same line of sight – she clenched her jaw and pulled the trigger. Little Russia bucked in her hands, hurtling a bullet between two stacks of industrial crates, straight into the ear of one ambling zombi and out the other … and farther still, to lodge in the forehead of a second dead man right behind it. A big red circle splatted thereupon, and in perfect synchronicity, the two dead men toppled down to the planks. They dropped with a hollow, melodic thunk.

Before the other three shamblers had a chance to react, Horatio Korman’s revolvers fired – two shots each – and all three went down within a span of as many seconds.

Both of the lurking shooters, the woman and the Ranger, exhaled happily and sat up. Neither was the type to praise effusively, and neither wanted to heap too much kindness upon the other. Both of them had their reasons. But they exchanged a set of friendly glances, which would’ve surprised anyone who knew either of them.

Not that anyone knew about these strange dates. No one except Ruthie, who only suspected … and who had obligingly spread a rumor that Josephine Early was being courted by someone in particular, someone who didn’t want anyone knowing about his interest.

It was practicallytrue.

Korman said, “Fine. I’m down by one. I’ll catch up to you later. But for now, we’ve already shot down more than I can use in a week of Sundays, and the pier is clean. Let’s watch another minute to be sure, and then I’ve got to get to work. I only have four dry plates on me, so that’s all the photographs I can take.” He sniffed, and pulled out a pouch of tobacco. “Between us, we’ve done the Quarter a favor tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wouldsay that, Ranger. So there’s one more thing we agree on.”

“If we keep this up, we’ll need more than one hand to add ’em up.”

“Don’t get your hopes too high. Why didn’t you bring more plates? I thought you were supposed to be researching these things, proving they exist, or whatever it is Austin wants from you.”

He rolled himself a cigarette and licked the paper to wrap it tight. Then he stuck it in his mouth and talked around it while he answered her question. “For one thing, they’re heavy. For another, they break if I do too much running around. This photography equipment is a goddamn mess. It’s barely worth the trouble, I tell you. I hear there’s a fellow named Eastman who’s working on making something lighter. I hope he hurries up. I look forward to the day I don’t have to tote fifty pounds of spare parts just to get one stinkin’ shot.” He struck a match on the cargo crate beneath his rear end and lit the cigarette.

“Less trouble than stopping to draw pictures, I expect. You going to keep all that to yourself, or offer a lady a smoke?”

“By all means.”

“Hand me the pouch. I’ll roll my own.”

He passed it over to her and watched as she established her own cigarette. He told her, “I’m not much of an artist. And even if I did take the time to sit around on my spurs, twiddling a pencil around a sheet of paper, everyone would say I’d made it all up. But a photograph – that’s evidence,is what that is.”

“After a fashion.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means – pardon me, I’ll need a match, thank you – that no one’s believed you so far, despite your photographs.” She inhaled, drawing the smoke deep into her chest and closing her eyes happily. “Your evidence doesn’t seem to be working out so well.”

He argued, “Plenty of people believe me. Youbelieve me. Half of New Orleans believes me, and the other half has its head jammed up its back passage. I know a whole train full of people who believe me – Union soldiers, most of them. I wish to God I knew what they’d told their commanding officers once they got home from Utah.”

“You don’t know?”

“I can’t get hold of anybody. For one thing, there are political considerations.” He said the last two words with snideness, clearly copying the tone of someone who’d raised them as a concern. “But there’s at least one fellow who I think would have my back, if someone were to fight me on it. A captain by the name of MacGruder. Problem is, he’s been transferred. No one will tell me where he went to, but wherever he is, I bet nobody believes him, either.”

“Go figure,” she murmured.

“When I took my leaders back up to the pass at Provo, there was nothing left. Nothing!” he said a little too loudly. “Not a miserable trace of what had occurred, except a shell here and there, or a bullet left lying in the snow. I don’t know who covered it up, but someone, somewhere, did. Someone wants it kept quiet.”

“But not you.”

“But not me. And not you either, ain’t that right?”

“That’s right. Not me either.”

They smoked together in silence, the woman and the Ranger in civilian clothes, a man who’d still never be mistaken for anything but a Texian. When their cigarettes were nubs too small to hold any longer, they snuffed them out on the roof of the container and spent an awkward span of seconds in silence.

Finally, Josephine said, “I’m not trying to help Texas. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m not trying to save New Orleans. I guess that makes us about even.”

“I don’t even trust you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

She smiled. “It’s just as well. So!” She made a show of standing up and changing the subject as she changed her position. “Do you think it’s safe to go down there and take your pictures? Collect your samples?”

He stood quietly, squinting out into the darkness, toward the gas lamps and their stretched shadows, and the river with its shimmering moonlight, and the stars that gave no light at all – but plenty of ambience. He said, “I don’t hear anything else coming. Do you?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then how about we start with these, and you keep a lookout while I do my business. Are you all right with that? Don’t worry, you won’t be doing a damn thing to help Texas. I promise you, Texas isn’t listening to me. Yet.”

“I don’t mind playing lookout. As long as you don’t mind losing tonight.”

“Losing?”

“You’re still down by one.”

“I told you, there are still more of these things farther down the river.”

“You also told me you’re short on plates.” She strolled to the ladder, built into the side of the cargo container, and began to descend it. “And the night is growing late, Ranger Korman. I have a business to run. And God knows, I have some sleep to catch up on.”

He made another one of his patented grumbling noises and said, “Fine. Let me get these bastards squared away, and we’ll see how late it’s really gotten. We can always pick up where we left off later. We’ll just say the score’s been put on hold.”

“Will we, now?”

“Yes,” he said, looking down at her, for she’d reached the street level and was a few feet below him.

She noticed him looking down the top of her dress, but did not bother to cover herself, or pretend she hadn’t seen him looking. All she said was, “Call it how you like it. I won tonight.”

“It’s whoever shoots best for the week,” he insisted.

“The week?”

“Yes, the week. It’s only Thursday. We’ll start again tomorrow night, and see who’s on top come Sunday morning.”

“You’re a filthy heathen of a man, aren’t you?” she asked him, watching as he turned around and began his own descent to the knotted, bleached boards of the pier. And to her.

“Ma’am, you don’t know the halfof it.”

Author’s Note

“Fun with Real History!”

As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, I’m a big fan of real history … and really making a mess of it. In my humble opinion, that’s half the fun in steampunk – adjusting the past to better fit my personal convenience, or narrative curiosity. So it should not come as a great surprise that a healthy dose of Actual Stuff made its way into Ganymede.

First and foremost, I suppose, it’s worth mentioning that Horace Lawson Hunley was a real person – a Confederate engineer – and the Hunleywas a real craft. Likewise, James McClintock and Baxter Watson were Hunley’s partners, but my description of their subsequent descent into murder and hypothetical treason is wholly fictitious. Although Hunley was originally from Tennessee, he relocated to New Orleans, where he lived for many years. There, he did much of his developmental work on submarines, though it was the Pioneer(and certainly not the fictitious Ganymede) that was scuttled in Lake Pontchartrain.

The Hunleywas built and tested in Mobile, Alabama; she was subsequently seized by the Confederate Navy and put to work against the Union naval blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, drowning five men on her first outing in 1863. She killed her second crew – eight men, including Hunley himself – in a routine diving exercise later that same year. Her final voyage took place on February 17, 1864.

This time, the Hunleyearned a spot in history as the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy ship – the Housatonic—in battle. That was the good news.

The bad news was that mere minutes after signaling to shore that the mission had gone as planned, the Hunleyvanished. All eight men on board were lost, bringing the Hunley’s final body count to twenty-six, including the five sailors who died aboard the Housatonic—which goes down in the history books, too, as the first ship ever successfully torpedoed into matchsticks.

The Hunleywasn’t seen again until 1995.

And because truth is so often stranger than fiction, it was discovered by legendary author and adventurer Clive Cussler, who found it buried just outside Charleston Harbor.

Today, courtesy of the South Carolina HunleyCommission and a private not-for-profit group called Friends of the Hunley,you can see the submarine itself at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina. I recommend that you visit http://hunley.org for more information on the craft, and details regarding tour availability.

The only other historic figure of note to actually appear in Ganymedeis Marie Laveau, renowned Voudou practitioner and cult figure of nineteenth-century New Orleans. She passed away in 1881 at a ripe old age, surely in her late eighties, but authorities occasionally differ with regards to her date of birth, so I hesitate to offer an exact figure. Laveau is allegedly interred in a mausoleum in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans, but people like to argue about that, too.

As for Barataria Bay and the Lafittes … much of that was on point, if a bit exaggerated.

Jean Lafitte was a French privateer whose dates of birth and death are likewise in dispute, but he and his brother Pierre definitely raised a lot of hell in the Gulf of Mexico in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. After the United States passed the Embargo Act of 1807, Jean and Pierre moved their base of operations from New Orleans proper to Barataria Bay, where they took up pirating and smuggling. In 1814, America raided the bay and seized most of its assets – despite the fact that Lafitte had actually tried to warn the States about British shenanigans. In return for a pardon, Lafitte helped Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British in 1815, and later went on to take up spying against the Spanish in Galveston, Texas.

Jean Lafitte may or may not have died in 1823, but Barataria Bay was a choice spot, and persons of dubious character continued to frequent it long afterwards.

If you’re from the Gulf Coast, you can probably list half a dozen things named after Lafitte off the top of your head. One of my personal favorites is the Old Absinthe House (often just called “Lafitte’s”) on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans. It was built in 1807, but like the above-mentioned historic quarrels, no one really knows for sure whether or not Lafitte ever owned it, visited it, or had anything to do with it.

Finally, a note about the character Ruthie Doniker, and her secret.

This ought to go without saying, but people with a variety of gender identities are not a twentieth-century invention. They are rarely discussed in traditional history books, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t present.

Case in point: Should you ever take the historic Underground Tour in Seattle, Washington, the gift shop at the end has a large black-and-white photo of the notorious prostitute “Madam Damnable” surrounded by several of her employees in a late-nineteenth-century parlor setting. As the tour guides will sometimes whisper to you, all is not quiteas it appears. At least one of the ladies is a “man.”

Was she a transgendered woman? Was he a crossdresser? Was the truth something else entirely? Anything’s possible, and there’s no way of knowing now. But there was obviously a call for her services.

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

GANYMEDE

Map by Jon Lansberg

Edited by Liz Gorinsky

A Tor eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010 www.tor-forge.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Priest, Cherie.

Ganymede / Cherie Priest.—1 p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2946-2 (pbk.)