For Jacelyn, who asked:
"It's cold."
"That's why it's called the Arctic, darling."
I dart a sidelong glance at you, fabulous in mink, cheeks artfully reddened by the cold of deep winter. Not the most practical of outfits, but then we're out of the worst of the passage and heading into the calmer waters where your work will begin, and perhaps you feel the need to celebrate.
We have spent the last month skimming the edge of the pack ice, following the narwhals into their feeding grounds through the obstacles that have hidden them and protected them for so long, the smokestacks of the Cossack flecking the pristine bergs with the soot that follows humanity's footsteps like Peter Pan's industrial shadow.
"Even for the Arctic."
"Well." You thrust your hands deeper into the muffler. "That's why it pays to be prepared."
I wrap my scarf around my face, cutting off further conversation. After a moment, you step up next to me and push a box into my hand.
"I'm sure you didn't bring a handwarmer."
"I had two. You stole them two weeks ago."
"You forget, apprentice. Everything that is yours belongs, by law, to me. Besides," you shrug, "it's in a good cause. I needed the platinum catalyst."
"Weren't prepared?"
You bare your teeth.
"Insufficiently. I'll do better next time."
I take the charcoal burner over gratefully, slipping it into my glove and feeling the warmth slide up through to my fingertips.
"So it's working?"
It is sitting up front in the bow of the icebreaker, covered in oilcloth that keeps the soot from falling into its crystalline innards.
"It makes sounds. It receives sounds. Babbage's gearing and Lovelace's connection diagrams shift those sounds to detectability and the wax cylinders record them. If the cold doesn't crack them. So it works. Whether that work does anything..." You shrug.
The waters rush by underneath. The sailors warned us, brusquely, against staying at the rail too long, especially alone and at night.
The water draws you in, they'd said. And you'd lean further and further out to look at it until, without warning, your centre of gravity shifts that tiny bit too far out and you tumble headfirst into the uncaring sea. They even had a name for it-- calenture-- that sounds far too innocuous for such a deadly hypnosis.
"Sponsors are not going to be happy if it doesn't work."
"I don't intend them to be happy if it does." Your face sets. "Hunting whales for oil I can understand. Hunting them for ambergris is similar. But hunting them because you want their magical horns in a world where there is no magic... that's stupid."
"That's why you want the Cossack to carry on to Massachusetts?"
"Yes." You shrug. "You want to come with me?"
I shrug. I have no family anyway.
"Why not."
"I just need it to work once."
"And then?"
"Then, my foolish apprentice, I go back to the factory and scale it up. We find out how the narwhals talk to each other . And then--" You shrug. "Maybe we can warn them."
You have a logbook in your trunk. I've seen it. It contains observations, readings, maybe a little black magic. All about talking to narwhals. Every single click and whistle and knock and trumpet, and the responses each sequence garners.
A translation guide and phrasebook, custom made to talk to aliens. To transmit a message through the machine at the bow, to warn them to stay far, far away, when they hear ships coming with the selfsame machines to seek them out and rip their horns from their faces.
The Cossack rides up over the edge of a floe; a groaning crack reverberates through the hull of the ironclad, before the bow drops. I stagger; you don't, and I note that you wrapped your arm around a stay before putting your hands into the muffler.
"Always prepared, boy. Always prepared."
The third mate is heading towards us, I note, touching the brim of his hat with a gloved hand.
"Ma'am." His voice is respectful. "The captain wishes to inform you that we are in range."
"Well." You turn to me. "Shall we go talk to some unicorns?"
Time taken: 40 mins
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