Curtsies & Conspiracies

Everyone burbled in perturbation. The crowd boiled upward as ladies raised on tiptoe to see what was happening. Teachers and other staff pressed forward to ascertain the cause of the commotion. Lady Linette, trained as she was, sensed the manufactured nature of the distraction and surveyed the crowd, but with over three dozen on the midship deck it was easy for Sophronia to wait until her teacher’s gaze passed her over.

The moment Lady Linette looked elsewhere, Sophronia crouched. The fashion for large hats, even at night, afforded her some protection from view. Removing her own bonnet, she made a break for the staircase that led to the upper decks. She’d be exposed if she actually took those stairs, but she could hide behind them until everyone had disembarked.

Sophronia waited patiently until blasts of steam and the sound of cranking indicated the staircase was being pulled back up. The ship lurched upward. It was safe to emerge.

Professor Braithwope was visible on the upper forward squeak deck far above. He was climbing into the contraption Professors Lefoux and Shrimpdittle had built. It fit him like those suits designed for undersea exploration. What are they called? Diving suits. Once it was fully in place, he looked a little like an oversized mechanical, only more liquid in his movements.

Sophronia made her way around to the far side of the ship, out of view from the watchers below. But not before she saw Sidheag sit next to Captain Niall, along with Dimity and Pillover.

Giffard’s aether-current floater, the Puffy Nimbus Eighteen, swooped into sight, ululating in their direction. Sophronia had once manned an airdinghy, and she knew enough to admire Giffard’s skill. Once the other airship was level with Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, the school extended a long gangplank to it, and Professor Braithwope ran across with a tightrope walker’s skill. The gangplank was drawn back and the two ships began to rise ponderously, keeping pace with each other. Sophronia had intended to check up on the sooties, but she was hypnotized by the action above her, so she stayed hanging where she was. Professor Braithwope and Mr. Giffard exchanged pleasantries, and then Mr. Giffard went back to work steering his small vessel. The two ships rose together, so high the people below became little specks. Then so did the trees of the park. Finally, London herself was nothing but a blob of twinkling lights. They were above the clouds at last, and then higher than Sophronia had ever floated. The air was glacial and the winds howled by; the propeller pushed hard against the breezes through which the school normally drifted peaceably.

Sophronia wondered if there would be a defining shift when they hit the aetherosphere. She knew that it must be close, that invisible onion skin, the thing that protected them all from the void beyond. She couldn’t believe they intended to take Mademoiselle Geraldine’s up that high. Giffard’s aether-current floater was built for the changeable humors of the upper sphere, but Geraldine’s was not.

She turned her attention to Professor Braithwope. The vampire stood stiff and straight, leaning back against the railing of the Puffy Nimbus’s one squeak deck and looking up. Sophronia could hardly fathom that he intended to enter aetherosphere. Very little was known about it, except that it was breathable but dense, not like normal air, and dangerous. Only humans had ever been inside it, and only very few of them. But no other vampire could float up even a short distance; Professor Braithwope was the exception, by virtue of his inhabiting their school. So the school had to go up with him as far as it could, keeping his tether as short as possible.

They intended all along to send the vampire, suited in his protective gear, into the aetherosphere on Giffard’s ship. He will be the first supernatural creature to enter aether. They want to know— vampires, werewolves, government, Picklemen. They all want to know: what happens to a supernatural creature in the aetherosphere? They built him a suit as a nod to safety, but they really have no idea what will occur up there.

Professor Braithwope was undergoing a very dangerous test indeed. For queen and country, the potentate had said. For science, Sophronia thought.

Mademoiselle Geraldine’s stopped rising and held steady, the propeller fighting to keep the school in place. They had gone up as high up as possible. Directly above us, thought Sophronia, must be the aetherosphere. It boggled her mind. She looked but couldn’t see anything apart from very bright stars. The aetherosphere was invisible from below, and opaque from within, or so she’d heard.

Giffard gave some kind of signal and the Puffy Nimbus bobbed up, leaving Mademoiselle Geraldine’s behind.

At first everything seemed fine. Then Professor Braithwope began to gyrate around in his mechanical suit, waving his hands about his face as if fending off a swam of attacking wasps. The mating dance of a mechanical was Sophronia’s hysterical thought.

Giffard seemed to be occupied doing battle with his navigation helm. Sophronia thought she heard Professor Braithwope scream. Then she saw him jerk wildly backward, come up against the railing, and flip right over it. At the time and for years after, she was never certain if he fell accidentally or jumped in order to get relief from invisible tormentors.

Professor Braithwope, encased in his Lefoux-made suit, was tumbling down though the air. His body was limp and there was no sound coming from him anymore.

He should be screaming, thought Sophronia, inanely. I would be screaming.

She watched, transfixed, as the vampire’s body spiraled down into the clouds and out of sight.

Then she moved. He was supposed to have had a guidance valve in that suit of his. Presumably connected to their ship’s boiler room, so they could follow him right away if anything happened. But he either hadn’t used it or it hadn’t worked, because Mademoiselle Geraldine’s still held steady.

Sophronia had never moved so fast about the hull, hurling and jumping from balcony to balcony in a frenzy, working her way down until she could climb in the hatch to the boiler room.

She had never seen engineering so busy before. It was a swarm of activity, every sootie awake and at work. There were greasers, firemen, and engineers everywhere monitoring the flurry. It couldn’t have been easy. All the boilers were burning, licks of flame coming from the fuel boxes. Steam that didn’t make its way out through the pipes filled the room, clouding the upper portions of the cavernous space and making it seem more intimate. It was incredibly hot.

Sophronia’s only thought was to find Soap. Fortunately, he found her.

“What ho, miss?”

Sophronia babbled, forgetting her manners and grabbing his arms in an excess of emotion. “Soap! The school has to go down with him! His tether will snap!” she yelled helplessly into the loud bustle of the boiler room. “Go down now! Take us down! Please!”

Soap put gentle hands on her clutching arms. “I don’t know what you’re on about, miss, but orders have to come from the pilot’s bubble.”

Sophronia panicked. She remembered only Professor Braithwope’s face when she asked him about tether limits. How terrified he had been. They needed to follow him as quickly and as closely as possible.

“Soap, who is in charge of the boiler room?”

Soap looked at her, mouth open. “What, miss?”

“Take me to him, please? Now.”

Soap lead her through the craziness at a run. Sophronia dogged him in her full dress and hat, looking as if she were about to go for a stroll in Hyde Park. Her skirts were long enough to lift up the soot dust in her wake, like steam from a machine.

They ended up at the base of a tall platform that rose up to one side of the room, allowing the man standing on its top to overlook the entirety of the activity therein.

“You stay here, Soap. No sense in us both getting into trouble.”

“Are you sure, miss?”

“Yes,” said Sophronia. No, thought Sophronia.

Soap’s face puckered in concern, but Sophronia turned her changeable green eyes on him and said, “Please.”

So he let her climb up to the dais alone.

The man who stood on the top was dirty with coal dust and wore simple clothing—jodhpurs, boots, shirt, and vest. He had facial topiary sprouting off of his chin and down his neck like a mountain goat. The beard was