Free Dieselpunk: An Anthology by Craig Gabrysch Page B

out with the other, said, “You jes’ tell me what happens, an if they’s anythin’ I’n do.”), one of the elevators (that was Mrs. Vermouth, right eye steady on the instruments an glass eye out the window, who opined they ought to throw that plaguey criminal out into the Deep Blue before he woke snakes), the navigator (Sake-sama, who was with Vermouth on this one), the electrician (Fru Akvavit, who shut pan on the matter), an the fuel room attendees — that was Doc Bock the rigger an the Pálinkás Néni, girlchilds an boychilds a-help around them, surrounded by tanks of life-water tubed up into the great panners that filled the Don’t Look Back ’s lifts.
    An there was others, but I don’t care to tell you about them right now.
    An so in that room there was these folks:
    There was Sally Schnapps, a tiger-sized girl with wide-spaced eyes, a nose like a watchcase, an hair that never did no one good, her body atrophied an thin from the living that came on a Silver Mountain, her legs an arms braced round with mechanica that click-humm ed when she moved.
    There was Dame Ale, a clove-dark shave-haired granma’am, all muscle an bone who was the Don’t Look Back ’s engineer, with a head for any an all skyships you could think of, an even some you, gentle reader, couldn’t.
    There was the Chevalier D’Absinthe, a tall an likely man all slicked up in a green coat with white stripes, looking piqued at being brung here instead of being at his work, which was at the helm alongside Father Cordial.
    An there was Boy Rum, who was taller even than the Chevalier, though shaped a lot more like a fence post, an whose father was Sir Arak an mother was Baijiu Jie, an who, on account of his being here while his parents took their own trip to some here-an-ago, had to prove he could work a few Club trips without cutting no shines, which, on account of his being nineteen, was a right trial on the boy. He’d also took a powerful fancy to Missy Gin, who, though she didn’t care a bean for that soft emotion, did tolerate the boy, an did help him when she could.
    An that was all. There was others, of course, of the Club, only they was working, an a few was off-ship visiting somewhere, like Boy Rum’s parents, maybe seaing the sights, maybe just at home, if they had one. The Kirsch Kid had took up daguerrography in an antiquated here-an-ago. Madam Sangria was off being a passenger herself, only not on a Club but on a paddleboat touring the islands of Even-Even. An Dr. Mead? Dr. Mead never told no one where he went, but judging from the books an maps I’d reckon that this time he’d gone off to that here-an-ago where they’s finally conquered that beast gravity, an are building great circuititious machines that jump out of the sea an into the stars. (You’d know this for sure if you could see the flight-letters between him an Dame Ale — the more she heard of these machines, the stronger she hankered to take her little aerostat an fly on out to that here-an-ago her ownself to see with her very own eyes that space they talked about between the stars; an well she should, for there weren’t no stars in the Great Blue, only in the here-an-agos, different stars in each one. I ought to tell you — she finally did make it out there an up there, an what she saw there…but that, dear reader, that is not the story I am relating to you now, an so we’ll put that aside for a spell, an maybe I’n tell you about it later.)
    So, aside the crew that couldn’t make it, there was four people in that room alongside Missy Gin.
    Well, she prepared them on who’d gotten on their ship, an I have to say, not a one of them was pleased to hear it. Sally Schnapps worried, an Dame Ale studied on it for a while, but the Chevalier D’Absinthe an Boy Rum was both right peevish. They raised all manner of ideas against Mr. Smith, but Dame Ale only said, “I’ll allow it wasn’t civil of him. But what I’d like to know is: what are a couple of