Free Dawn's Early Light by Pip Ballantine Page A

fast charter vessel, the
Mercury
. It was hardly comfortable compared to the Maestro’s massive airship, the
Titan
, but she had required speed above all. He had been most emphatic about where to be and at what time. Even with the swiftness of her charter, she’d arrived in Newport News, Virginia, only to immediately run from aeroport to train depot, catching the one train that could take her to some poor excuse of a town in North Carolina, then grabbing a coach—again, chartered by the Maestro—that whisked her to the edge of the eastern seaboard overnight. She was exhausted but still focused.
    An airship as huge as
Titan
would draw notice everywhere it went, no matter if the port was a major terminal or one barely used. Here, on this lonely strand of beach, there was no need to worry about being observed. Sophia could not wait for the reunion.
    She flipped open the rear cover of her timepiece, revealing its compass face. According to the Maestro’s coordinates, Sophia needed to move a little farther west. She hitched the haversack up a bit tighter against her back, hefted the Lee-Metford-Tesla Mark IV higher on her shoulder, and followed the agreed-upon bearing. She was thankful for the choice of garments, her trousers and stout boots making easy work of the treacherous footing. She half ran, half slipped down through the sand and low grasses, her nostrils full of the smell of salt, which she always equated with the smell of fish—dead fish, in particular. Then there was the sudden grinding of grit in her mouth. Even though she had her black jacket buckled against it, kept her head lowered and her mouth shut, she just knew that in the evening she would need a thorough bath to get the sand out of every nook and cranny.
    Many people loved the beach, and Sophia del Morte was most assuredly
not
among them. Her profession had taken her to many unpleasant places before, and this barren wasteland of waves, wind, and dunes was merely another. She understood the Maestro’s reasons for choosing this site, but why couldn’t his ideal location have been within reasonable distance of a pleasant hotel or perhaps a vineyard? Sophia sighed, turned, and spat out more sand that had worked its way into her mouth, and resolved to forebear it, and most certainly not whisper any complaint. She had only made that mistake once.
    The compass in her hand chimed. She pushed her dark lenses up the bridge of her nose and looked around her, a slow smile spreading across her face. Yes, this barren stretch would be ideal. Her smile faded however when her eyes followed the coastline to where she would make ready the Maestro’s arrival.
    She was not alone.
    Two men in their rolled up shirtsleeves were working feverishly on some sort of contraption. It was a round cigar-shaped object about as tall as Sophia herself, and held in a cradle made of iron. She was curious by nature; and perhaps if she’d been on any other case she would have endeavoured to find out what they were up to, but the fact was they were stymying her plans.
    This would not be born.
    So engrossed in their work were these two gents that they never noticed Sophia’s approach, even though she was making no particular effort to be quiet. Standing only a few feet behind them, she tilted her head as she considered their invention in more detail. Strapped to the outside of the cylinder were a number of wires and tubes that, Sophia hazarded, contained various fluids, gases, or both. Not a large amount, but they were held in some sort of array that would mix them together. From the base, a small amount of steam was slowly seeping free, only to vanish into the Carolina breeze.
    Or perhaps it wasn’t steam at all, because it looked thicker and heavier than the surrounding air. In fact, the dense mist seemed to
fall
from the apparatus. Now, Sophia was completely mesmerised by the device.
    One of the men, the one with less hair, had some small hatch open.