Rue winced. “We must assume trade is more important than hostilities to the laymen. I do have gold. It should speak loudly enough to get us coal. As long as we choose the right vendor.”
She looked to Anitra, who nodded but still seemed worried.
“So let’s hope we can bribe officials to look the other way, if they do try to check. Meanwhile, let’s make ourselves look as innocent as possible. Two hours to nightfall. Recommendations?”
“Wait,” said Quesnel promptly. “Better to have an immortal awake than asleep.”
“Do it soon,” countered Percy. “People are less evil in daylight. And we’ve better view to shoot with the Gatling, should it be necessary to get out fast. Also I’ve better close-up manoeuvrability if I can actually see.”
Rue weighed the options. Percy was right, but they could disappear better at night if it came to a chase.
“Night it is. Percy, set us a course desert side, puff up as well, minimal propeller use, drift, save our reserves. Find us a small refuelling station in a bad part of town that might be more interested in money than morals.”
Percy nodded. It was a marker of his growing comfort with her command that he did not object further. She’d listened to his concerns but decided otherwise. He’d learned to accept that this was not a personal affront. Even if it did mean the loss of his striped bathing costume.
Primrose had a tolerably decent, if misshapen, American flag flying from the aft balloon by sunset. Virgil was, it turned out, a dab hand. So were several decklings.
The flag clashed horribly with the ladybug spots.
Miss Sekhmet appeared abovedecks, snorted at it in amusement, and was brought up to speed about the situation. She deemed it prudent to shift to lioness form before they landed. Rue saw no reason to object.
Percy found them a refuelling station attached to one of the southernmost water wheels. It puffed black smoke with enthusiasm, but its owners, a group of robe-shrouded and bearded chappies, did not look favourably upon wayward tourists limping in, desperate for a refuel. American or no.
Rue put on her most supercilious rich young lady airs, her fluffiest dress, a scarf about her head in a mockery of a veil, and a particularly bad cockney accent.
The man who came, cautiously, up the gangplank to meet her didn’t seem to know what to do with her.
Anitra spoke to him in some lyrical tongue.
He seemed to mostly understand her.
She explained to Rue, “He’ll sell us coal but wants proof we aren’t a ship of war.”
Rue responded. “Ey up. Why’re we be?”
Spoo hissed to Virgil. “What does she think she sounds like?”
The man came further up the plank, flanked by three large friends, each had some kind of small sword, or big knife, strapped to his belt.
The leader, now standing where the gangplank met the gate in the Custard’s railing, seemed not particularly suspicious of anything he saw. Not even the Gatling. When he gestured at it, asking Anitra for an explanation, she shrugged and said, “American,” pointing to their flag.
The man nodded his understanding.
Eventually, without bothering to look belowdecks or ask after their needs, he left the way he’d come.
“What now?” Rue asked Anitra.
“We wait.”
“Why so easy about the gun?”
“Americans have a reputation, guns and flags. Plus that gun of yours is a Colt.”
“Ah. British manufacture would mean a” – Rue hesitated, trying to remember – “Maxim?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, then, I’m delighted Dama has less pride in national manufacture than interest in an attractive appearance.” Rue had no doubt her vampire father had researched the best rapid-fire to mount on The Spotted Custard, but she also had no doubt that he was attracted to the round golden sheen of the custom lightweight Gatling. The Maxim was a brutal-looking thing and the Nordenfelt positively unseemly. If one must give a young lady a ballistic birthday gift, it should, at the very least, be pretty.
“So far, I think they are buying our ruse. I may have convinced them you are the daughter of a South Carolina railroad baron.”
Rue blinked at Anitra. “Have you, indeed?”
“Oh yes. Miss Prudence Mayberry.”
Rue blinked again. “All righty, then.” She’d heard a Southern accent out of the United States once. It sounded, to her ear, slightly like a gramophone playback off speed. She could try to combine that with cockney but had a feeling the results would be disastrous.
“Lady Captain?”
“Spoo?”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d avoid the stage, were I you.”
“Noted.”
An hour or so later, the man returned. Through Anitra he quoted Rue a quantity and a price, the quantity less than she’d asked for and the price extortionist. Rue accepted both, tight-lipped.
After some haggling, the tradesmen agreed to bring the coal up to the mouth of the fuel tube and Rue agreed to provide sooties to feed at that point. At this juncture she cursed herself for doing it at night: it would be difficult to check coal quality in this light. Nor could they bring a gas lamp out. So far, all activities had indicated both the airship and supplier wished to keep the transaction private. Rue’s guess was that the local government imposed a heavy tax and, with a war on, took it out of the tradesmen’s product as well as their coffers. Their host was likely desperate for regular trade.