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Hainey’s bright white grin spread so far that the scar on his cheek crinkled up to his ear. “It’s a diamond. ”
“A diamond?” Maria exclaimed. “All this trouble for a diamond?”
The captain said, “Not just any diamond. An orange diamond the size of a plum. The man who cut the thing called it the ‘clementine,’ so I guess the boys who stole our ship thought they were being funny when they renamed her. ”
“I’ve never even heard of a diamond that big. And why do you know this?”
“I’ve got a friend back west, a fellow captain and a man of fine character. When the Free Crow was first boosted out from under us, this friend helped us try to retrieve her. ”
“That’s a good friend indeed,” Maria said.
Hainey agreed. “I owe him one. Or two, or ten. And now I owe him double. Down in Tacoma he found a fellow to tell him what my ship is carrying. He sent a telegram to fill me in. That’s how I know about the diamond. And now I know why my ship was stolen. ”
“To transport a diamond?”
“To transport a diamond and a two-thousand-pound corpse. There’s an old story that floated around for years, and everyone always thought it was a tall tale—even though every man who ever repeated it swore it was the truth. ” As he spoke, Hainey gave the throttle a deeper nudge, urging the ship faster, farther, towards the transient docks.
He continued, “There was a certain lady of…leisure. Her name was Conklin, but everyone called her ‘Damnable. ’ She was the richest woman west of the Mississippi and maybe east of it too, for all anybody knows. She had plenty of money, at any rate, and she spent a great wad of it on a diamond found a hundred years ago in India. She wore it set in a necklace, almost all the time. ”
Lamar piped up. “I heard she shot a dozen men who tried to steal it from her, and one woman too. ”
The captain said, “It’s possible. She was a real piece of work, and when she died, she took the diamond with her. The funeral man dressed her in her finest, hung the diamond around her neck, and filled her coffin with every drop of cement it would hold—just like she asked him to. Then the gravedigger made a hole twice as big as he needed, and once the coffin was lowered down inside, they filled up the hole with cement too, in order to keep out anybody who wanted what she was wearing. ”
“And no one ever bothered her body?”
“Not until my Free Crow was stolen. Not another ship west of the river could’ve lifted her up, carried her over the mountains, and gotten her into bluegrass country—”
Maria said, “No ship except for yours? She must be nearly as powerful as this one, then. ”
“Nearly,” he said. “But not quite, and this one wasn’t anywhere handy—so some bastard Union man paid a bastard pirate named Felton Brink to steal my Free Crow, dig up old Madam Damnable, and tote her to Kentucky. ”
“But I still don’t understand,” Maria insisted, “what a scientist needs with a diamond. ”
Hainey held up one finger. “I have a theory about it, and I’ll explain it to you just as soon as we address what’s…” he sagged. “What’s not right over there, at those transient docks. Do you see them?”
She craned her neck to see out the windshield, and then said, “Yes, I see them. I’ve never seen a set of transient docks before. ”
“Don’t know nothing about dirigibles, don’t know nothing about docks. Where you been all your life?” Simeon asked.
“East, mostly. The docks there are all pretty permanent, and the war doesn’t allow for much passenger activity. Mostly I’ve been moving around by train, coach, and carriage. But it’s quite a crash course I’ve gotten lately. ”
Lamar said, “And she knew about the ball turret gun; she knew how to use it. ”
The captain explained before Maria could do so. “It’s just a modified land model. I expect she’s seen them in combat. ”
“You are correct,” she told him. “And I could become accustomed to this flying business. It’s all rather exciting. ”
“It’d be more exciting if the Free Crow was still docked there,” Hainey very nearly sulked.
Maria asked, “Are there any other transient docks, anywhere around the city? I’m sorry, I wish I could’ve been more specific. But I didn’t know the information would prove valuable, and I didn’t press for details. ”
Simeon answered. “This is the only one I ever heard of. They break it down sometimes if there’s trouble, but they usually put it right back up again, right here. If this isn’t it, then we could spend another day or two flying around, looking for another one, but I don’t think we’d have much luck. ”
Lamar asked, “So what do we do, then?”
The captain took a deep sigh and straightened his shoulders. He turned his head to give Maria a look that was half promise, and half a nod of conspiracy. “Top speed, as fast as this thing will carry us. We make for Louisville. ”
The trip was long and the terrain below was an uninspiring rollick of river and hills, and trees peeled bare by the season. Maria gazed out the window and sometimes wondered why no one was following them; and then she’d remember the flaming dirigibles sweeping in their spinning, pendulum-swinging arcs down to make craters in the grasslands of Kansas, and she didn’t wonder anymore.
