Ganymede (The Clockwork Century #3)

Ganymede (The Clockwork Century #3) Page 8

Her dress rustled as a matter of course, but it was the sort of sound that was easily lost in the Quarter, beside the water most especially. The noise of her skirts blended seamlessly into the soft rushing of the Old Man as he worked his way to the Gulf. Her passage was masked by the calls and wings of night birds, and the dipping paddles of rum-runners coming in for the night, unwilling to crank the diesel engines on their small, flat crafts. It was lost in the sound of low, loose waves lapping up against pilings and the broad sides of the larger boats that were moored along the way.

She followed the Texians’ footsteps and the grumbling trail of their conversation—too distant to be heard with any clarity—down along the rickety wharves and alongside warehouses that no one examined too closely—not even the Republicans, unless they had strict orders to do so. And even then, only in the daytime.

This was a dangerous place, dangerous to any given group of men—armed and strong and unencumbered by corsetry or ankle-length skirts. No one knew this better than Josephine, and no one liked it less.

As the city glow was eaten by distance, and the banks, and the taller buildings that cast devious shadows thicker than ink, the only light to be seen bounced off the river in splintered fragments and skinny ribbons. It sparkled along the currents, cast by the lights on mercantile ships and riverboats chugging through the night, or sometimes by a quickly shuttered lantern or a smattering of torches left lit but fading at the edges of civilization.

This gray space between the city and the river … it was dying, and it was not a place to be visited frivolously. But not for fear of the rum-runners, smugglers, and other assorted criminal fiends. Even the worst of that motley lot shuddered and moved carefully along this borderland.

No, the banks were avoided for fear of something else.

Josephine wasn’t sure how long she’d been on the Texians’ trail, or how far she’d walked in silence. She must be coming up on Rue Canal soon; it must be there up ahead, over the nebulous edge where the city was so impossibly far away and out of reach. Even the music from the saloons, lounges, and gentlemen’s clubs was muffled here, or snuffed out altogether. Stray notes drifted in pairs and clusters, their tunes lost to the thick, wet air and the increasing distance.

Gradually, by carefully conducted shuffles and short, brave sprints, Josephine came near enough to catch their words. She could not see their faces, and for that matter, she could not tell them apart. She watched them in glimpses, around the side of a stack of crates stuffed with straw and heaven knew what else.

She shivered despite the warmth, pressing her back against the crates as firmly as she dared, as if she could will herself closer than the crates would allow. The stays of her corsetry jabbed into her hips, and her bosoms were thrust uncomfortably high as she compressed herself as tightly as her clothing would allow.

At first the conversation was idle office gossip, complaints about a stenographer, and then it moved on to concerns about money, troops, and supplies. Finally they both paused, like men who had been avoiding a topic and were now forced to confront it.

“I don’t like it out here, especially since I don’t know what we’re doing—so why don’t you help me out and tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry to lead you so far out into the boonies, sir, but I have my reasons. I can’t trust the barracks, or the office on the Square. We’re being watched, sir,” the speaker announced. Josephine’s heart nearly stopped.

It calmed again when she heard, “Of course you’re being watched—we’re all of us being watched, all the goddamn time. It comes with the territory.” This man—Colonel Allastair Betters, Josephine gathered—made an impatient noise and crossed his arms. “Listen, son. I realize the locals are none too forthcoming, but you’ve got to scare up some results. General Dwyer knows it’s out there. Shit, we all know it’s out there, in the water someplace. I don’t understand why you’re having so much trouble getting your hands on it!”

“Sir, do you have any idea how much water they’ve got around here? That’s why I’m bringing you down here, because look—look at this old wharf. You can see, can’t you? Somebody’s been here recently, and moving something real big. And I think I know what it was.”

“I can’t see any indication of anything except mud, dust, and a few fornicating turtles.”

Seconds later, a brilliant flare lit up the wharf—so bright that it felt like an explosion, but it was only the striking of a lamp. Josephine turned away, deeper into the shadow, and hoped that she vanished. She also thanked her lucky stars she was wearing a dark blue dress, which, except for its cream trim, may as well have been black, so long as she stayed out of the light.

“Jesus Christ, my eyes!”

“Sorry, sir. But it’s important that you see this. They’re doing something, on these pilings—on this dock. Look at the boards, sir. They’re scraped up all to hell, and freshly so. You can see, it looks like a huge team of men has been stomping all over the place.”

Josephine dared another peek around the corner and saw the two men huddled over a long drag-mark that did in fact look very recent. A few of the weaker slats had splintered and now jutted up, making for a truly treacherous landscape, and others were merely scuffed clean of the mildew, rot, and the discoloration of a century.

“All right, all right,” said Colonel Betters. “I do see about a thousand footprints. It looks like a bunch of men have been running around, back and forth. What makes you think it’s tied to one of the Hunleys?”

“Sir, I think we’ve had it all wrong. I think they’ve already got it on the move—that they’ve unscuttled it, fixed it, and they’re sending it down the river.”

This was news to Josephine, insomuch as it wasn’t true—but she didn’t mind the investigator being so very wrong. The farther off-track he could be drawn, the better.

The colonel said, “Hm. I don’t know about that. This is a mess, but is it a mess that says a military watercraft has been man-hauled around? We know the scuttled Hunley holds nine men. Would something that big and heavy fit up here? Wouldn’t this whole wharf just come folding right down? Hell, Cardiff, this thing’s so fragile, I’m half-afraid to stand here and bounce on my toes after a steak supper.”

“Sir, you’re right. And no, I don’t think this set of matchsticks would hold a Hunley … not all in one piece. I think they’ve disassembled it. They’re moving it in parts. They’re sneaking it off, bit by bit, onto barges. Dozens of flat-bottoms go by every day. We could never search every craft that comes through the delta. It just isn’t possible; we don’t have the people. And these bayou boys, they’ve got friends in Barataria. They could buy help, if they needed it.”

From her spot behind the crates, Josephine considered their incorrect theory.

It wasn’t a half-bad idea, and just this once she was glad that her brother’s crew had been so slow moving the craft. If it’d gone any quicker, they might’ve disassembled it—and then what? Then the Texians would be on to them. Still, it was cold comfort.

The Union had said outright that they wouldn’t spare extra money on a recovery mission until it could be demonstrated that the Ganymede actually worked. And worked without killing anyone inside it.

To date, such a demonstration had not been achievable, not on any serious scale. The controls were a mystery to every sailor the guerrillas had brought aboard, and the bayou engineers had only just discovered how to rig up makeshift ventilation pumps. No one had died on board since the ventilation had been installed, so progress was being made. It just wasn’t progress enough.

Not yet.

Deep down, Josephine knew it was possible to move the Ganymede, and move it safely. She believed it with all her heart—she’d seen the elegant schematics left over from the Confederate Hunley’s last, best efforts before he’d drowned in an earlier prototype. She’d held the secret rolled-up blueprints in her hands and read all about the machine’s destructive capacity, as laid out by its now-dead creator.

And she was confident to the point of obsession that if the Ganymede could be given to the Federal government, and reproduced, and brought into the war … then even Texas would back away, and at last the Rebs could be choked into surrender.

Much earlier in the war, the Anaconda Plan—an attempt to blockade the supplies to the whole southeast—had failed. But then, it’d been tried only with ordinary warships. Imagine how much more effective it could have been—and might be again!—if the blockade were undertaken with craft that swam below the water’s surface. Just consider the possibilities of such extraordinary machines, hidden and powerful, able to destroy ships from the Gulf or the Atlantic without having ever been seen.

It could end the war. Maybe the simple threat of it could do so. How much more could the Rebels really stand, anyway? Any idiot could see they were living on the cusp of what was sustainable; any fool could pick up a newspaper and understand in seconds that this couldn’t go on much longer.

Of course, everyone had been saying so for years.

“Tell me, then. What does this mean? How do we respond, in case you’re right?”

“First, I think we should clear out the bayous. Make a huge push—just wipe those bastards out of the wetlands for good. We’ll round up a few, twist some thumbs, and find out what they’ve done with the ship. Maybe if we’re lucky, they haven’t finished moving it off yet.”

After a pause, the colonel asked, “The damn thing failed, and failed again. Do you think the Union really wants it?”

“Mr. Hunley was a genius, sir, and so were the fellows who took up his work after he died. If the blues think they can start up that machine, they’ll pay for it, and pay top dollar. If they aren’t funding the operation already.”

“We may as well assume they are. Those swamp rats, they don’t have the money or resources to make such a stink on their own. Out there in the sopping wet middle of noplace, there’s not even anything worth stealing. Someone’s keeping them in guns and ammo.”