Stunned full of questions, Josephine had no idea what to ask first. She stammered, “Gas? A gas? From where?”
“Gas, you heard me. Like hydrogen, only not like hydrogen at all. This gas comes out of the ground, and it has something to do with volcanoes—that’s all I know.”
“They have volcanoes in the Northwest?” she asked, mystified. “I had no idea.”
“At least a couple of ’em. Best I can figure, from talking to a whole bunch of folks between here and there, this gas is mostly collected in a little podunk backwater of a place—some port city in the Washington Territory called Seattle.”
Seattle? Where Cly was living?
She sat there openmouthed, struggling for words and not finding them.
The Ranger continued. “This gas is sometimes called blight, and it’s not hard to figure out why. By the sound of things, it basically killed that little city. The locals had to wall it off and abandon it.”
“I … I didn’t know.”
“Hardly anybody does. No one wants to talk about it, not anymore. Thirteen years ago, the city’s former residents petitioned the Union to see if they’d accept Washington as a state. They thought if they were part of a country, and not just a distant territory, maybe they’d see some tax money or some military help. As far as I can tell, they gave up a few years later. With the war going on, the Federals weren’t looking to take on any new responsibility—least of all, responsibility thousands of miles away.”
“So … what happened to the people who lived in the city? The ones who abandoned it?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Either they moved back East, or maybe they stayed out there. Might’ve gone to Tacoma, or Portland. Might’ve gone up north to Canada.”
“All of this…,” she began, trying to arrange her thoughts into words. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I will say that it sounds far-fetched.”
“Dead men walking around a riverbank sounds far-fetched, too.”
“I’ll be the first to admit it, and both of us know it’s true. But this gas … why would anyone store it, or transport it? And what would anyone do with it?”
His smile swelled. “You’re asking the right questions. The gas is processed through some method or other. Distilled, or something like that. Then it’s dried down to a yellow residue, which can be cooked up and smoked, or snorted, or even swallowed.”
“But why on earth would anyone—?”
“Miss Early, have you ever heard of a substance called sap?”
“Like … like tree sap?”
“No, ma’am, like yellow sap. That’s the most common term I’ve heard for it, though I’ve also seen it called cracker piss, sick sand, and a few other things. It’s a drug, something like opium but a whole lot stronger and a whole lot cheaper. Soldiers are taking to it left and right, looking to escape the war, as you do. As anyone does.”
“And it’s made from a poisonous gas?”
“Deadly poisonous. So deadly, it kills you without stopping you. I’d heard tell that this sap has been finding a place among sailors, and with the young Texians, too—the ones sent far from home, especially. The lonely men, or bored men. Men without the sense to know any better, or men who’ve lost so much already that they don’t care.”
“It starts with a gas.”
“Yes. The gas itself turns people into zombis faster, more directly. Breathing it will kill you deader than a stone before you know what’s happened. But the drug does it slow. It takes time—time to build up in a man’s body, time to work into his blood. And gradually: not all at once, but in time…”
“In time, the men who use the sap become zombis?”
“Men who’ve used too much of it, for too long.”
“But you said a group of Mexicans in Texas … they weren’t all using the sap, were they?”
He shook his head. “No, no. A dirigible from Seattle was carrying a big load of gas, and it crashed out in the desert—right on top of them. It’s a long story,” he added fast, as if he wished to cut off commentary. “But that’s what happened to them, and it could happen here, too. Out at the airyard, or at the pirate docks—anyplace where dirigibles come and go, moving the gas around. Any leak or failure of their equipment could unleash it.”
The shivers on Josephine’s neck went down to her knees, which were beginning to tremble against her will. “How much gas are we talking about, Ranger? How much will a dirigible hold? How many people could one load of gas—?”
He held up his hands, and thereby his hat, which dangled from his left one. “How much gas depends on how big the dirigible is, and what kind of equipment’s on board. The one that turned some seven hundred Mexicans and their kin was pretty big. One of the biggest, I’d say.”
“Seven hundred!” she exclaimed. “And out in the desert? Here in the city, we have that many people on a given block at the right time of day or night. More than that down at the market on a Saturday, to be sure! And the market isn’t terribly far from the—”
“Ma’am, let’s not panic yet. I don’t know all the factors that make up a tragedy with this sap; I’m still learning, myself. All I’m suggesting is that maybe it’s one reason you’re getting such a population of the things here, collecting at the riverbank. It’s possible someone wrecked a craft and it’s leaking, or it happened once before. Or maybe with all the servicemen, and sailors, and pirates, and airmen … maybe you’ve got a whole lot of men here who are looking to escape their problems. Now I’m asking you, Miss Early, can you tell me anything at all that might help me out, given what I’ve just told you? I’m aware that I’m in a house of … that I’m in a ladies’ boarding house, and it sees a great number of visitors from the kinds of men I’m talking about. So I’m asking you, and praying to God that you’ll cooperate with me even though I’m sure you’ve got no great love for the Republic … do you know of your clients abusing any substance that might fit this bill?”
She took a deep breath and said quietly, “Yes, I do know. They don’t call it sap here—they call it devil dust—but that’s what you’re looking for, Ranger Korman. You’re looking for the men who make and sell devil dust.”
He snapped the fingers of his free hand and said, “I knew it! And I don’t suppose you could point me toward anyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of this devil dust, could you? Obviously I’d never mention it was you who sent me.”
“I can’t,” she admitted. “None of my ladies are allowed to touch it, or anything like it. This isn’t that kind of place, and these aren’t those kinds of women, no matter what you might think.”
“I never said—”
“I know what you did and didn’t say. But I can’t help you find it, unless…” She rose from her seat, pushing it aside. “I know someone who might have an idea.”
“A customer or two?”
“He’s more like a resident, these days,” she muttered. “A Texian. I wouldn’t accuse him of using the dust, but if anyone could point you toward it, it’d be Mr. Calais. Let me see if he’s indisposed.”
Horatio Korman rose from his seat and waited for her to lead the way again. “He lives here?”
“He might as well. Wait here. I’ll knock, and bring him up.”
Down on the second floor, she stood outside Delphine’s room and rapped in her most businesslike fashion. Momentarily it was opened by the girl in question, mostly dressed.
Behind her, Fenn Calais was seated in a pair of pants and nothing else. He looked up from a chessboard. “Miss Early?”
“Mr. Calais, you’re up. Excellent. And I’m glad I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Only the whipping this girl is giving me.” He scooted off the bed, which he was using as a seat, with the board on an end table. “You never do give room and board to the dumb ones, do you, Miss Early?”
“Not if I can help it. Could I possibly have a word with you? In my office? Momentarily?”
“Should I dress?”
“It’s up to you. There’s a Ranger present, if that makes a difference.”
He nodded solemnly. “It does.” Rather than reaching for his shoes or shirt, he grabbed his hat, jammed it onto his head, and said, “Let’s go.”
Eleven
Captain Cly and his crew members had spent as long as possible getting further acquainted with the intricacies, quirks, and foibles of the strange machine. By the onset of nightfall, they knew it well enough to usher it around even in the dark—not speedily, not perfectly, but effectively.
Could they shuttle it around the lake? Absolutely.
Would they be able to navigate the river in it? Debatable. But no longer negotiable.
Word had come from the Valiant, by taps and spies and eventually Norman Somers, that the ship wouldn’t wait much longer. Texas was homing in, hovering and sweeping, gathering enough forces to chase the airship carrier farther out into the Gulf. It wouldn’t be safe for the Union to hang around any closer, any longer.
They had forty-eight hours to bring Ganymede out to the Gulf to dock with Valiant. After that, the window would close and the opportunity would be lost … perhaps indefinitely.
As the sun set on that afternoon, the shadows all stretched out until they lost their shape, and the lake was dropped into the golden-edged dimness of twilight.
And then, these tense, frightened, brilliant men set their plan irrevocably into motion.
It was a precision operation, planned to the very smallest detail and—as Cly learned from Chester Fishwick—it had been dry-rehearsed at quiet, sneaky length. Not with the actual Ganymede in tow, of course. That would be too risky. They’d get only one shot at moving the enormous contraption from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, and it had to count.
