Word of Honour Page 3

  The deck beneath their feet shifted again, then levelled. Aubrey noted how Captain Stephens altered his stance to accommodate the change in orientation, easily, without having to steady himself with a hand. It was an efficient, capable display of expertise.

  'Everything running smoothly, Captain?' Sir Darius asked.

  'Topnotch,' Captain Stephens said. 'I thought you might like tea once we'd reached our cruising depth.'

  'Cruising depth,' Aubrey asked. 'How deep is that?'

  'About ten fathoms. Deep enough to avoid enemy detection.'

  'How do you find your way along when you're this deep?' George asked. 'Must be pretty murky out there.'

  Captain Stephens stood back from the doorway and ushered in a steward with a tea tray. 'Pitch black. But we don't have any portholes anyway. We rely on compass headings and good charts. And we're trying out a new gadget, too.'

  Rokeby-Taylor grimaced at this. 'I was saving that for a surprise.'

  'Ah, more magic?' Sir Darius said.

  'Partly,' Captain Stephens said. 'You should ask Atwood about it. Something to do with bouncing echoes off things. It's not working at one hundred percent efficiency as yet, but we're aiming to test it over the next few months.'

  Rokeby-Taylor smiled broadly. Sir Darius glanced at him. 'What other surprises do you have for me?'

  'Wait until you see the torpedo guidance system. It uses the Law of Similarities for targeting. Spectacular.'

  Aubrey was alert at this but, before he could ask anything, the light overhead blinked. Then it flared a sudden blue-white before dwindling to a sickly yellow. At the same time an electrical roar came from the bow, a baleful hissing that Aubrey felt as much as heard. Suddenly, his breath was taken away as he was buffeted by a wave of complex magic. He clutched at his chest, struggling to breathe, and tried to make sense of what had struck him.

  'Stay here,' Captain Stephens snapped, then bounded out of the door to the shrieking of a klaxon.

  'I say,' George began, but stopped abruptly as the floor tilted again and the submersible began to plunge.

  Immediately, Aubrey knew this was no controlled dive – test or not. The deck dropped away and it was suddenly like looking down the side of a tall building.

  At that point, everyone scrabbled for handholds.

  The klaxon continued, a harsh metallic braying that overrode a cacophony of shouting, rending and shattering. The chairs in the wardroom started to slide. Books fell from the shelves. The table was bolted to the floor, an island of solidity, but the tea service – cups, teapot, sugar bowl – crashed to the deck.

  Aubrey had an awful instant where panic offered to take over; he decided that gibbering and running in circles probably wasn't going to be useful so he declined. His body had other thoughts, however. His heart accelerated, his breathing slipped straight into 'rapid and shallow' mode, his palms somehow decided that copious amounts of sweat might be useful when it came to clinging for his life, and his stomach tried to turn itself inside out in a demented effort not to be left out of the general uproar. Aubrey closed his eyes for a moment, gritted his teeth, and refused to surrender.

  He clung to the table while his father wedged himself in the corner of the room. George had fetched up against the door. The walls around them shook. Deep, tortured groans came from deep in the bowels of the vessel, but these came from no human throat – they were the protests of the craft itself as its walls resisted the mounting pressure of the depths.

  A colossal shock racked the submersible. Aubrey was thrown to the deck. He lay there, alert, his mind racing, wondering what was happening.

  The next moment, the Electra was rocked by another immense impact, much greater than the first. Aubrey was hurled against the leg of the table. He gasped as he took the blow on his shoulder and bit back a cry of pain.

  Then the lights went out.

  Three

  AFTER A MOMENT OF INTENSE, TERRIFYING DARKNESS, the electric light flickered and came on again. Dull orange, it wavered ominously.

  His heart still racing, Aubrey tried to take stock. The deck seemed to have levelled. In the corners, piles of books, broken china, chairs. He saw his father, face down, arms spread.

  Fear muscled panic aside. Then Sir Darius lifted his head and scanned the room. Relief nearly turned Aubrey's muscles to rubber. 'That second thump would have been the stern hitting the sea bed,' Sir Darius said. He rose – knees bent, arms away from his side, ready for any further shocks.

  Aubrey helped George up. 'I wish they'd turn off that klaxon,' he said. It might help us hear if we're leaking or not.

  George looked around uneasily, as if he expected the walls to collapse at any second. 'What happened?'

  'Clive?' Sir Darius demanded. 'What's going on?'

  Rokeby-Taylor stood and straightened his jacket. He licked his lips nervously. 'I have no idea.'

  'Then let's gather some information,' Sir Darius said. A stream of sailors and officers stampeded past the open doorway. Sir Darius waited, then shot out an arm and seized a collar. The young officer squawked and Sir Darius guided him into the wardroom.

  He was short, about as old as Aubrey, and his dark eyes were very, very fearful.

  'What's going on?' Sir Darius demanded. 'Are we in danger?'

  'Sir, sorry, sir, I don't know. It's all hands to stations, so that's where I was going.'

  'But what's happening?'

  'The engines have stopped. Topper and Badger said there's been some sort of explosion. That's all I know. Please sir, I need to get to the torpedo bay.'

  'Yes, of course,' Sir Darius said distantly. He let go of the young officer, who scampered out the door.

  'What happens now?' George asked. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, ran his fingers through his hair and finally jammed them in the pockets of his jacket. Aubrey had rarely seen his friend so anxious, but when he thought about what lay only inches away, he decided George had a right to be concerned.

  'Not being an expert in submersible engineering, there's not much I can do,' Sir Darius said. 'What about you, Aubrey?'

  'Now, Darius,' Rokeby-Taylor said, 'this isn't the time to panic.'

  Sir Darius speared him with a look. 'Clive, your machine may have stranded us at the bottom of the sea. If you don't have any constructive advice, don't interrupt me while I talk to someone who may be able to help.'

  Rokeby-Taylor opened his mouth, then shrugged. 'As you wish.'

  Captain Stephens appeared at the door to the wardroom, frowning. He had a smear of grease on one cheek. 'No injuries?'

  Sir Darius shook his head impatiently. 'What's going on, Captain? Are we in danger?'

  'Well, we've lost our batteries and our air won't last forever.'

  'That sounds like "in danger" to me,' George muttered.

  'Lieutenant Atwood's been badly injured. We need someone with magical skills.'

  'Aubrey is your man, then,' Sir Darius said. 'And what about you, Clive?'

  'I'm rusty, but I'll see what I can do.'

  'Both of you,' Captain Stephens said. 'Quickly. This way.'

  George and Sir Darius went to accompany them, but Captain Stephens shook his head. 'It's a mess down there, I'm afraid. Not much room at the best of times, but now, you're better off here.'

  Sir Darius nodded. 'We don't want to be nuisances. Be careful, Aubrey.'

  Aubrey turned, moved by his father's concern and confidence. He sought for words, but finally settled for holding up a hand in acknowledgement before hurrying after Captain Stephens.

  At first, as they struggled through the crowded passageways, Aubrey thought the submersible was in a state of chaos. Men charged pell-mell, dragging ropes and chains or carrying crates. Orders boomed off metal bulkheads. Painful hammering echoed along the walkways. But he soon realised that the expressions of the sailors were tense, not panicked. They were the faces of trained men going about their duties in extreme circumstances.

 
Just the sort we need if we go to war, Aubrey thought. When we go to war.

  Aubrey was buffeted as they hurried along, but he gamely kept right at Captain Stephen's shoulder. Finally they reached a hatch.

  Inside, the electric lights were sputtering. A pale, lambent glow ran across the banks of switches and dials. Steam whistled from a pinprick in a pipe to Aubrey's left. The whole room was overlaid with a throat-scratching burnt smell, while a faint magical residue set Aubrey's senses jangling.

  Along one wall, metal straps hung loose on dozens of tall, narrow compartments, like doorless closets.

  'The batteries.' Rokeby-Taylor pointed. His face was deathly white. 'Where are they?'

  'I said we'd lost them,' Captain Stephens said. 'It's exactly what I meant.'

  LIEUTENANT ATWOOD WAS STRETCHED OUT ON A TABLE. He had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, and the entire left side of his uniform was scorched. He was tended by a brawny gunner's mate, who was strapping his leg with surprisingly gentle hands.

  'Atwood,' Captain Stephens said, softly.

  Atwood raised himself on one elbow. His gaze drifted across Aubrey's face, then rolled back again, as if he were hard to focus on. 'I never wanted to go to sea, you know,' he said in conversational tones. Then his eyelids dropped and his head fell. It was only the quick reactions of the gunner's mate that stopped his skull from bouncing on the bare metal table.

  'No help there, I'm afraid,' Captain Stephens said to Aubrey and Rokeby-Taylor. 'Any suggestions?'

  'I've been in a submersible for less than an hour,' Aubrey said, 'and you're asking me what to do?'

  'I hate to say it, but it looks as though it's magic that's the problem, not the submersible,' the captain said. 'The machine is sound, but there's nothing to propel it.'

  Rokeby-Taylor glanced angrily at the empty racks. 'How could they just disappear?'

  Aubrey needed more information. 'Captain, what would you do if the problem weren't magic?

  Captain Stephens rubbed his chin. 'The batteries power the electric motors that propel us while we're under the water. They power the pumps, too, so that means we're in real trouble.'

  'Why do we need pumps? We don't seem to have sprung a leak.'

  'A submersible rises and dives because of buoyancy. When we pump more water into the buoyancy tanks, we dive. When we pump water out, we rise.'

  'Like a dirigible.'

  'Just like a dirigible. Except when an airship loses buoyancy, it crashes to the ground. We sink to the bottom of the sea.' He touched his cheek, found grease on the end of his fingers and looked at it quizzically. 'I don't know which I'd prefer.'

  Aubrey could almost feel the weight of the water outside, pressing on the thin shell of the submersible. Black, dense and cold. He shuddered.

  'But what happened to the batteries?' he demanded. 'They couldn't just disappear.'

  'That's just what happened,' Captain Stephens said. 'Atwood was fiddling with them, inspecting them, whatever he does. A flash of light, a crack like thunder that knocked me off my feet, and suddenly Atwood's on fire and the batteries are gone.'

  'Impossible,' Rokeby-Taylor muttered.

  'What about the diesel engines?' Aubrey asked Captain Stephens. 'Can't we run them and pump the water out?'

  'Can't run diesel engines underwater. Not enough air for them and the exhaust would kill us.'

  'So we need to power the pumps with no batteries.' Aubrey felt the increasing horror that comes from having only a few possible outcomes – and none of them favourable. 'Muscle power?'

  'All hands to the pumps? Sorry, we left that behind when we moved from sails to steam.'

  Aubrey looked up, then he had it. 'The lights. Where are they getting their power from?'

  'Good thought, but pointless, I'm afraid. It's a separate battery system. Small. Nowhere near powerful enough to shift the pumps or the motors. And they won't last long.'

  'I see. Just because I'm curious,' Aubrey said, 'how many submersibles have been rescued in a situation like this?'

  'In the Albion fleet, or worldwide?'

  'Worldwide.'

  'That'd be none, then.' Captain Stephens cocked a half-smile. 'Submersiblers don't like to talk about this sort of thing, you understand.'

  Rokeby-Taylor was bent over, peering into the battery racks.

  'Mr Rokeby-Taylor?' Aubrey said. 'You're the expert on the Electra. Have you any insights?'

  'Eh?' He straightened. 'Well, it was the batteries I was most interested in. Can't say I'm totally familiar with all the other aspects of the craft.'

  'The batteries then. What was so special about them?'

  Rokeby-Taylor reached into pocket of his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief. He swabbed at his brow. 'They were a hundred times more powerful than anything else ever invented. Spells accelerated the rate of something or other. Or decreased it.' He rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a details man.'

  'Can you remember anything helpful?'

  'Only that we need the batteries if we're going to get out of here. Life or death, I'm afraid.'

  Aubrey sighed. He hadn't really anticipated performing any major magic. His condition was fragile; it could crumble at the slightest provocation. Like performing serious magic.

  Grimly, he turned his magical awareness inward to check his status.

  His soul was nestled within his body, but it was uneasy. The golden cord that led to the portal guarding the way to the true death tugged, fitfully. It wasn't a comfortable state of affairs but Aubrey had learned to live with it, like a toothache.

  He decided that he was stable enough to undertake some careful magic. And since he really didn't have any choice, he saw this as a good – and timely – thing.

  He ignored the small voice in the back of his mind that wondered if he were overestimating his readiness. What else could he do?

  He went to the racks where the batteries had been. Great insulated copper cables – each as thick as his wrist – drooped like overcooked noodles. There was simply nothing to connect them to.

  Aubrey peered into the racks. The feeble emergency lighting made it difficult to see, but he could feel the prickling of magic on his skin. Was it just residue of whatever spell had caused the batteries to disappear, or was it something else?

  Alternatives paraded in front of him. The batteries could have been transported somewhere else. That would be a major spell drawing on the Law of Displacement. Moving such bulky objects any distance at all was a highly complex task, but it was a well-established procedure. Which meant he would have detected it from a mile away, so he crossed out that possibility.

  Or the batteries could simply have been destroyed. He shook his head. The residue in that case would be magical, but also physical. There were no traces of metal fragments, or pools of acid.

  No. This is something esoteric, exotic, radical.

  He leaned right over the restraining bar. Taking his weight on his stomach, he ran his finger across the middle of the metal plate. He examined it closely. It felt slightly gritty, but with an overtone of orange, which was his mundane senses trying to come to terms with magical remnants. He sniffed, and it smelled pointy – another sense-scrambling magical quality.

  He rubbed his finger and thumb together absently; without realising it, he began to hum.

  Rokeby-Taylor and Captain Stephens appeared at his shoulder. 'D'you have something?' the industrialist asked.

  Aubrey started. 'Maybe. Possibly.'

  'Not sounding altogether certain, then.' Captain Stephens glanced in the direction of Atwood and the gunner's mate. 'It'd be good if you did. We don't seem to have many options.'

  Aubrey nodded. 'Mr Rokeby-Taylor, do you recall the Law of Dimensionality?'

  Rokeby-Taylor screwed up his face. 'Dimensionality? I may have missed that lecture.'

  'It's obscure stuff, usually glossed over.' Aubrey studied his thumb and forefinger. 'I have a feeling that a clever magician manipulated the batteries
with a spell derived from the Law of Dimensionality. All done on a delay, of course, to go off when we were well at sea.'

  'On a delay,' Rokeby-Taylor echoed. Then he narrowed his eyes. 'Manipulated the dimensions? Of the batteries?'

  'Exactly. Height, width and breadth are our standard dimensions. The Law of Dimensionality states that any spell that deals with a physical object must include these aspects, to cover its physical presence.'

  'Fairly obvious.'

  'And that's where most people stop. But if the Law of Dimensionality is inverted, then it points the way to create spells that can manipulate the dimensions of objects. It's very tricky stuff, but it's possible to reduce objects to a state of having no dimensions.'

  Captain Stephens stared at the racks. 'No dimensions?'

  'I think the batteries have become . . . points.' Aubrey groped for an explanation. 'Imagine turning a cube until all you can see is one side – a square. In effect, you've turned a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional object. The same thing happens if you turn a square around so you can only see one edge. A line. Two dimensions become one. These batteries have been turned, and turned again and again until three dimensions have become none.'

  'If you say so.' Captain Stephens pushed back his cap and scratched his head. 'Really, I don't care if the batteries have become merry-go-rounds, as long as you can restore them.'

  Aubrey thought hard. It shouldn't be difficult. The spell-caster had been arrogant, assuming that the cleverness of the magic would baffle anyone left on the submersible. In Aubrey's favour, he had the natural tendency of objects to return to their true form, reverting to their original state if given half a chance.

  'Not wanting to rush you,' Captain Stephens said, 'but I'd say we only have a few hours air left.'

  Aubrey's palms were sweating. He ran them along the sides of his trousers. As a possible fate, suffocating in a tin eggshell at the bottom of the sea was not high on his list of favourites.

  Danaanian. The ancient Danaans were great ones for their geometry, so using their language to manipulate dimensions should work well. A few simple terms, delimiting the strictures placed on length, height and breadth, and that should do the trick. Simple – and not too taxing.