Free Emilie and the Sky World by Martha Wells Page B

and maybe take lessons. She had written to me about it before. It wouldn’t even have cost him anything, just the passage on a steamer, and it’s not very expensive.” She folded her arms. “If you don’t believe me, you can write to Karthea and ask her yourself. I had my things sent to her from home, and I stayed in Silk Harbor at her house the night before last. Daniel was with me. He stayed in the housekeepers’ cottage. I was going to visit her there for a few days, then we found out about this” – she waved an arm around, taking in the airship and the aetheric disturbance they were heading toward – “and we had to come back to Meneport with Professor Abindon.”
    “Oh.” Efrain seemed taken aback, possibly at all the witnesses to her actions and behavior that Emilie could bring to bear if necessary. “I thought… I thought you were trying to find Erin, that you might think he was in Meneport.”
    Emilie felt her lip curl. Anyone with any sense knew that naval ships spent months at sea, traveling around protecting merchant and passenger ships and ports from pirates and raiders. The only address Emilie had for Erin was the general one for the naval shipyard, but it took ages for letters to the ships to be forwarded from there. “You thought I’d just come to the docks and perhaps run up and down them crying, shocked that his ship wasn’t here? Besides, he doesn’t care about us. He left us all behind, and if we all died tomorrow he wouldn’t shed a tear.” She stopped, a little shocked. She hadn’t meant to say the last part; it had come out all on its own, a fear that had been buried in the back of her mind since Erin had left.
    Efrain stepped back and pressed his lips together. He said, “You left just like he did. You don’t care about us, either.” He turned away, going back toward the rear compartments.
    “You stopped caring about me first,” Emilie retorted to his retreating back. It was a cruel parting shot, and she knew she had gone too far.
     
    Emilie went into the control cabin and shut the door behind her. She was still angry, and in that unsettled way when you knew the argument was more your fault than anyone else’s. Miss Marlende was at the controls, and Dr Marlende and Lord Engal were occupied with the aether navigation. It was mounted on a pedestal between the two control stations, and looked very like the one Emilie had seen used on the Sovereign . It had a flat silver plate etched around with the symbols and degrees of the compass directions. Two silver rings could be rotated around it, to help determine longitude and latitude. On a shallow dish on the plate itself, there was a liquid silvery substance that looked like mercury but was actually drops of clarified, stable aether. It rolled around when the plate was turned and rotated, and pointed the way toward aether currents in the air and water.
    Lord Engal and Dr Marlende were making minute adjustments to it, probably trying to pinpoint the best location to enter this aether current. Dr Marlende was saying, “I wish Deverrin had spoken directly to me. I feel I owe him an apology. If I had known then what I know now, I would have gone up after them.”
    Lord Engal said, “But any aetheric traces of the Deverrin airship’s passage would have been scattered by the lightning of the storm.” He adjusted the plate again. “Even if they did enter another aetheric plane, we wouldn’t have been able to track them. And if they haven’t managed to make their own way back by now, they must be dead.”
    Dr Marlende adjusted the plate back where it had been before, and made a hmph noise.
    The professor was seated at the other control station, taking notes or writing down her own observations. She said, dryly, “Even you can’t work miracles, Marlende.”
    Emilie let her breath out, not sure whether she felt relieved or even more awkward that no one wanted to shout at her about Efrain. They’re busy with things that are far more