originalsam_backup | The Dead Isle: Chapter Five

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Chapter Five

Ellis woke that night from untroubled sleep to the unusual sensation of someone sitting on the edge of the chaise's cushions, disturbing the balance of weight and jostling his shoulders and hips, making the still-healing cut on his arm twinge.

He was lying on his side, facing the darkened room; for a second his hand clenched against his body where a small knife was strapped under his shirt, but when he opened his eyes he saw who it was and stopped.

"Existential dilemma?" he asked, which he felt was quite good for -- what time of the morning was it? Jack was still asleep, but that didn't mean much.

Clare Fields, perched on one of the cushions, ducked her head and twisted her fingers together in her lap.

"Are you all right?" he asked, pushing himself up on one elbow. In the bed, Jack snorted and slept on.

"I finished re-reading Geppetto," she said.

"Did you read all night?"

"Pretty much," she said.

"And your conclusions?"

She turned her head, giving him a slightly scornful look.

"What? Obviously you wanted to speak with me. Here I am, awake at..." he fumbled for his pocket-watch, sitting on the end-table, nearly dropping it twice as his arm protested. She Created a ball of light for him to see by. "...thank you -- two-eighteen in the morning, and available for discussion, dissection, criticism, or praise."

"I was going to pick at all the things wrong with it," she said, dousing the light.

"Quite right. Life is in the details." He rubbed his face and rested his shoulders against the sofa's arm. "Pick away."

"I don't want to now."

"Also all right; no-one really likes to hear what's wrong with his work. What do you want to do?"

"The story," she said, taking a deep breath. "It's not just about...inverts, is it?"

"Not exclusively. It's about the search for love and acceptance, and the ways in which unthinking people prevent it."

"How do you know so much about it?" she asked. "How can you possibly know all that? Everybody likes you."

"Well, yes, now that I'm famous and I've spent years learning to be likable," he replied, drawing his knees up to give her more room. "I wasn't always the golden boy. We all struggle with universal things like love and truth. Some of us struggle more than others."

"I don't want to like you," she said. "You took us away from school, you manipulated Jack -- "

" -- like an exquisite toy," he agreed. "Surely I'm not the first; you must have had teachers who influenced you. Someone told you to go to the Trade Schools; someone fostered Jack's adulation of the steam engine. You're far too intelligent to be wasted in another two years of school. You want someone to show you the world, even if you don't know it."

"And now you're manipulating me," she said.

"I'm telling you the truth. But I spoke, just now, in the plural form -- I include Jack in my assessment. And if you don't want to like me, but find me irresistibly likable at any rate..." he smiled gently. "I suggest you enjoy the journey, Miss Fields. Your life will be infinitely more interesting."

She flopped back against the cushions, tilting her head to stare up at the ceiling.

"I am thirty-four," he said, after a while.

"No you're not. You're already going gray."

"Indeed I am. I cultivate my premature gray and the gravitas ascribed to me. Age makes a man more respectable, makes him seem harmless. Twenty years ago I learned hard truths about the world, more than I had already known. I spent years pursuing something I didn't realize I didn't want; then a woman showed me the path to the life I wanted to claim as my own. Both the schooling I left behind and the work I left it to do are equally important to me, and three years wasted in the span of thirty-four is not so much. When you are thirty-four, this will have been a mere minute in your life. And perhaps you will take more from it than you dreamed."

"And you get what you want," she said. "A flying machine."

"What I want, what Jack wants -- what you want for Jack, because you love him," he said. "I suspect when you talk about Geppetto you only understand the feeling of solitude that comes from having no-one to love because you remember a time after you were taken from your parents and before Jack, when you were terribly alone."

"I hate how much you see," she said.

"So do I," he replied. "But I see it anyway. Go to bed, Miss Fields. When you wake up in the morning, imagine a world in which you don't dislike me so, and then see if you can still fit into it."

He watched as she rose, shook out the folds of her nightdress, and walked back out into the hallway, checking to see if anyone was there before nipping back into her room. Then he tilted his head against the cushion, closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep.

***

Over the next five days, an uneasy peace settled over the trio of travelers. Jack was continually building models and, eventually, took over a small workspace in the engineers' shop in order to build a model engine that rotated a spiral metal blade he scrounged and modified from a propeller part. The ship's engineers watched with interest as the thing took shape.

Jack wasn't really sure what went on between Clare and Graveworthy, but in the brief pauses he took to eat and sleep and occasionally smoke a cigarette with the other engineers he began to notice that she stopped making digs at Graveworthy, and Graveworthy joked and smiled more often in her presence. He sometimes saw Graveworthy walking and talking with people on the lower decks, as often as not without his sling, stretching his arm to keep it from cramping.

They were within a day of docking at Penzance when he finally calibrated the last of the gears on the little engine and finished bolting it to a wide wooden platform that, scaled up, would have provided just enough space for two men to live comfortably over the space of a few weeks. The gears were as thin as he could make them and he'd adjusted a belt to run more efficiently with less wear, plus he'd included counter-rotors to stop the whole thing from turning with the blade. He had a feeling he knew what the end result of the maiden flight of the Aerial Screw would be, but he couldn't resist making a to-do about it anyway.

"John, I'm freezing," Clare said, wrapping a thick duffle coat around her shoulders and huddling close to a post on the foredeck that blocked at least some wind that cut across the bow.

"Just one more moment," he said, checking a pressure gauge on the engine. Graveworthy rubbed his gloved hands together and pressed them to his face, warming his hawk's nose and blue-turning lips. A handful of ship's crew stood nearby, secure in thick woolen hats and heavy jackets.

"What's it supposed to do?" Cally asked Graveworthy, who shrugged.

"Looks like a potato-peeling device to me," he answered.

"Big potatoes."

"Well, everything's huge in America, you know."

Jack let out a triumphant "A-ha!" and pointed to the pressure gauge. "Ready to go! We just want a gust of wind..."

The wind, coming in towards land, obliged almost as soon as he'd spoken and blew his hair into his eyes as he flicked a lever and stepped well back.

The engine began to whistle and vented steam; the blade rotated slowly, then faster and faster until the whole thing vibrated on the worktable the crew had set up.

"She's going up!" Jack shouted, just as the Screw took to the air with an especially fierce gust of wind. For a second he thought perhaps his calculations had been wrong and that it would succeed after all; it seemed to be lifting higher and higher, and the platform stabilized it without creating too much drag. It was moving forward off the deck of the ship --

But as soon as it left the relative shelter of the ship's deck it began to sway from side to side unsteadily, the whole machine turning round and round in the air with the rotations of the blades. After one particularly strong pinwheel it jerked once, flung a handful of bolts out of its engine, and destabilized completely, bursting into flame from the friction and dropping like a stone into the sea below.

Jack ran to the railing, tracking the little machine as it tumbled past the forecastle and into the water with a soft splashing noise. Clare joined him shortly after, nearly colliding with the cold metal. Others were peering over his shoulder as well, looking for the Screw's remains.

"That was exceptionally exciting," Graveworthy said, somewhere in the distance. "Was it meant to do that?"

Jack had the distinct sensation that he was being teased.

"It almost made it," he called, without turning around. "It needs stabilizers! And some kind of thrust."

"That wasn't cheap material," one of the engineers remarked, almost casually.

"I'll pay it back," Jack sighed. "Progress isn't cheap, I suppose."

"It won't replace steamships anytime soon," a sailor added.

"It's not meant to," Jack said, looking annoyed for once. "Shame we lost the whole engine, I spent a lot of time building it ultra-light. And it can't possibly hold much water -- it's got to get it all converted to vapor before it gets off the ground."

He turned around and leaned on the rail, crossing his arms. The long greatcoat that Graveworthy had lent him flapped around his ankles as he contemplated the table where the Screw had been sitting. Clare rubbed his arm reassuringly.

"You always blow things up a few times before you get them right," she said. Graveworthy was speaking with the crew, his head occasionally jerking towards them. Jack wondered what he was telling them.

"I fixed the turning problem, for a while anyway," Jack said. "The counter-rotators worked. Leonardo da Vinci was a genius -- I don't know why he couldn't invent anything better. He was obsessed with flight. I can't think of any other way to get lift. I guess he couldn't either."

Graveworthy, bidding farewell to the rest of the crew, rejoined them at the railing and pointed over Jack's shoulder. He turned; there were sea-birds flying towards the ship.

"We'll make port tomorrow, day-after at the latest," he said. Jack watched the birds wheel and turn, flapping occasionally. Birds were so light; their very bones were hollow. Perhaps thinning out the metal at points, if done properly, could make it light enough -- no, there would be uniform stress, and the weakened metal would fault sooner.

"When we arrive in Penzance we'll go straight to the train, and take an overnight carriage to Cambridge," Graveworthy continued. "I have a house there, and if you like we can install you both as students."

Jack was aware that he was being handled. Graveworthy, who didn't know him as well as Clare, was trying to cheer him up. But Jack was not given to dwelling on failure, and he had more practical concerns.

"Barn," he said.

"I'm sorry?" Graveworthy asked.

"I need a barn," Jack said. "Or a small warehouse. Something large, with large doors. And tools."

"The tools and workshop are taken care of. You need a barn to...build the machine in?" Graveworthy asked carefully.

"A big field would work if it was secure," Jack added. His mind was already filling with lists. "Access to a machine shop, too. Does Cambridge have one?"

Graveworthy smiled at him. "I think so. Get some rest tonight -- we have a lot of traveling to do in the next few days. Mr. Parsons, Mrs. Parsons," he added, tipping his heavy felt hat as the captain of the ship approached Jack, presumably to have a word with him about what he owed for parts. Jack had a hard time minding being abandoned; he was only going to charge it to his room, anyway, after he'd itemized the list of parts and their correct prices.

Tomorrow they would make land; after that it was a question of getting off land again.

***

They made port at Penzance in the evening, docking to hails from the land and with great cheering on the ship. Ellis stood in the midst of the crowds on the decks, watching Cornwall approach with apprehension; safe as they may have been a'shipboard, when they disembarked there was less he could control, and far more danger to Jack and Clare. He didn't think an agent of America or France or any of the other rival nations would penetrate into Great Britain herself, not over a boy engineer who wasn't even certain he could build what was needed, but one never knew. Life in Her Majesty's Service had taught him to take nothing for granted.

As they docked, however, he was heartened by one sight -- the Union Jack waved gaily over the port. Beneath it, someone had tied two blue streamers and a white one to the line that carried the flag. Allies were awaiting him; his message, sent ahead on a faster clipper steamer, had made it in time. He ducked below the deck and ambled back to the cabin he shared with Jack, who was crawling under the bed to make sure he hadn't left anything there.

"We'll disembark before sunset," he said. "Ready to meet Great Britain?"

"No," Jack said, half-muffled. "I can't find my wrench."

"You packed it last night in the top of your trunk," Ellis reminded him. Jack extricated himself, glanced at Ellis, and opened his trunk, rummaging in a pocket in the lid. When he found the wrench he beamed and shoved it in his pocket.

"Thanks," he said. "Clare's packed, she's getting us something to eat."

"Excellent. When we disembark, there will be someone waiting to take us to the train. It's best if you don't ask too many questions, and leave the talking to me," he said. "We'll leave last of the first-class passengers."

"I don't mind," Jack said, lying back on the bed. "I'm looking forward to the train. They say English trains are built differently."

"Many of them are older, I believe," Ellis said. "How do you feel about joining Cambridge once we arrive?"

"I might sit in on one or two classes," Jack replied. "I won't take more than that -- I'd rather have the time to work."

They disembarked an hour later, at the end of a long procession of opulently-dressed men and women followed by porters wheeling trunks and suitcases down the gangplank. Jack walked first, staring in awe at the port and the crowd that had come to greet the steamship, stumbling a little as he stepped onto land once more. Clare, just behind him, linked her arm with his and stepped to one side to allow Ellis off as well. As soon as he stepped off the gangway, a ragged girl in threadbare clothes presented herself and asked if he needed a cab; as she asked, she pushed up the slouch-hat she wore against the wind and rubbed her earlobe anxiously.

"A cab would be excellent," he said, offering her a tip. She took the coin, whistling for one of the waiting horse-drawn cabs to pull over. Ellis waved the youngsters in, supervising as his contact and a porter loaded the luggage.

"Is this a safe port for tired travelers?" he asked idly.

"Aye sir, safe as can be," she answered, without turning to look at him. "You'll find no pickpockets here."

"I'm glad to hear it. Do you know the name of a hotel where we could stay?"

She glanced at the porter who was helping her and, when she saw he was too far from her to hear, she smiled. "Anderson's waiting for you with tickets on platform five, sir."

"You're overyoung to be in this business," he observed.

"Going on sixteen, sir. You'll know my mother, Asma."

"Bigods, you're Asma's daughter?" Ellis asked, honestly surprised. He wasn't aware that Asma Khan had a child, let alone a daughter as old as the girl standing before him. "Send her my regards."

"She certainly sends you hers," the girl replied with a wink, and helped him into the carriage before he could answer. As it took off, he leaned out the window to glance back at her. He remembered when he was a young man first learning how this game was played, and now a woman he'd known in his youth had a daughter old enough to learn to spy. Life was very strange, and sometimes seemed all too short.

"We'll meet a friend of mine at the station," he said to Jack and Clare, who were huddled together on the bench across from him, both staring out the window in fascination. "I believe he may travel with us as far as London. I think you'll like him. He's a Creationist, works in the government offices. I've known him for years."

"How far is London from Cambridge?" Jack asked.

"Not far. We may change trains, but between now and then there's time to sleep and to plan. Are you making progress on your whirligig?"

"The Screw? In my head," Jack said absently. "It's a matter of building something light enough to lift its own weight. I might have to talk to some engineers."

"You'll find plenty of those in Cambridge," Ellis replied. He fell silent, allowing the children to watch the town pass by, until finally Jack spoke.

"It's huge, isn't it?" he asked, still staring out the window. "The world. We're across the ocean from Boston. Which way's west?"

"That way," Ellis said, nodding out the other window. "A third of the world between us and them, almost. Not so large, though -- we crossed it in two weeks, which isn't bad. When you perfect your machine, it'll be smaller still. And -- speaking of speed, I believe we've arrived."

Jack put his head and half his body out the open window eagerly, drinking in the sight of the train station and the giant steam locomotives puffing and blowing on their rails. He let out an enormous whoop and Ellis had to bodily pull him back inside before they could get the door open. Jack was off like a shot; Ellis lunged and managed to haul him back by the collar of his coat.

"Not so fast, Baker," he laughed, clambering out behind him. "Miss Fields, stay close. This is no time to get lost. Platform five," he added to the pair of porters who ran up, eager for tips from an obviously wealthy man.

"That way, sir," one of them pointed, and Ellis with his heart in his throat saw Gregory Anderson hailing them.

He was finally home; they might be in Cornwall and he might be traveling with two Americans but he was on home soil, and Anderson was a sight for sore eyes.

"Hullo old man!" Anderson called, meeting them at the edge of the platform. "Have a care -- watch the step -- welcome back."

He engulfed Ellis in a hug, an unusually public display of affection for either one of them, then stepped back to take in the two Americans standing, suddenly diffident and shy, nearby. "Is this the one?" he asked, nodding at Clare. "She looks likely -- "

"Half of it," Ellis grinned. "Miss Fields, Mr. Baker, this is Gregory Anderson; Gregory, this is Jack Baker, lately of Harvard, and Clare Fields of the Creationist Trade School in Boston."

"Well, welcome to both of you," Anderson replied cheerfully. "Up you go, first compartment on the left. And you," he added, retaining Ellis on the platform. "Graveworthy, I have news from the shipping offices."

"I shouldn't let them out of my sight -- did you hear he was almost stabbed in Boston?" Ellis replied.

"He's safe on the train, I cleared the carriage. Here's your ticket. Are you all right?" Anderson asked, looking at the healing scar on his neck. "Last I heard you'd been shot in Wyoming, then stabbed in Boston, and then two nights ago someone tells me to run down to Penzance and collect you."

"Flesh wounds," Ellis replied. Anderson poked him in the shoulder and he winced. "I'm fine. I'm just glad to be home."

"Not a moment too soon. Another shipment of steel went out to Australia today. God knows what they pay with, but we can't stop the ships going; they're private merchants. Even the privateers can't catch them; they run slow but they're armed like anything."

Ellis rubbed the back of his neck. "And our side?"

"Stepping up building, sending ships east to India. The local government's not happy about it."

"I'd be uneasy too if some occupying force started filling my ports with guns," Ellis answered.

"My point is, we need accurate reporting. Can your wunderkind get us there in time? We have maybe six months before there's going to be real trouble."

Ellis glanced at Anderson's face and saw that it was lean and drawn. He was worried, and if he was worried that meant Her Majesty, in the abstract, must be very concerned indeed. He smiled, and Anderson's shoulders relaxed a trifle.

"Gregory, if Jack can't build this, I don't think anyone can," he said. "But the boy mustn't know that there's a war to be fought if he fails. He's -- gentle. He's an artist."

"What's the girl doing here? Bodyguard?"

"She's as good as his sister, and she wasn't safe in Boston. Now, you can lean on me all you like to get the thing built, but he's the one who has to build it, and if you give him room to breathe I think he will. I've been working on them for a month, land and sea, and if you upset his balance now you'll set it all back."

"Look at you," Anderson said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Father Graveworthy, defending his children."

"Defending the project," Ellis replied. The conductor called for everyone to board, and a pair of station agents eyed them suspiciously. "Come inside. No more about this until we can speak privately," Ellis warned, and stepped back into the carriage before Anderson could object.

Inside, Jack was standing on one of the benches, prodding at the fold-down bed above their heads; Clare was examining the curtains that could be drawn across the beds at night.

"They're like cats," Ellis said in Anderson's ear. "Sit down, Gregory, and meet my protégés."

***

Jack and Clare, with the resilience of the young, slept soundly on the train to London once their excitement had worn off. When Jack woke the following morning he didn't think Graveworthy had slept, given the dark circles under his eyes, and Mr. Anderson's bed hadn't even been rumpled; Graveworthy told them he'd left them when the train passed through London, earlier that morning.

Jack, still barely awake, followed obediently as they disembarked in Cambridge and climbed into a cab, heading along a narrow street, away from the train station and through the city. He wasn't really clearheaded until the carriage stopped; then, when he disembarked, the shock of where he was filled his brain.

"Be nice to sleep in a bed that doesn't move tonight," Graveworthy said, climbing out and rolling his shoulders. "I've been looking forward to this ever since we took ship. Come along," he added, taking a keyring out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and led the way inside, but Jack stayed where he was, staring.

The house was huge, neither the small suburban home he'd grown up in nor the crammed-together but luxurious townhouses of Boston. It looked like a building from Harvard, red-brick and covered in ivy, fronted by rows of tall windows. One man couldn't live here alone; in Boston it would have been converted into eight or nine apartments and rented out to the wealthy.

"Come in, then," Graveworthy called. Jack hurried inside, where he found Clare removing her coat with the assistance of a small, tidy-looking man.

"Thank you, Nicholas," Graveworthy said to the man, who hung the coat up on a row of shining brass hooks near the door. "This is Mr. Jack Baker; he'll be staying with me as well."

"Your coat, Mr. Baker?" Nicholas said, holding out his hand. Jack shrugged out of it and hung it on the hook himself, absently. Inside, the house seemed even larger; there was an enormous staircase leading from the wide entryway up to a windowed landing.

"Nicholas is lord and master, really," Graveworthy told them. "He's in charge of the house. I hope he's aired the beds."

"Of course, Mr. Graveworthy."

"And laid on some food?" the last with an almost desperately hopeful look.

"Mr. Anderson sent word you were arriving. There are cold sandwiches in the kitchen, and I will heat up the soup shortly. I think Mr. Baker and Miss Fields would prefer a bath," Nicholas said. Jack didn't dare contradict him. "This way."

The servant led the way down a corridor that seemed to go on forever, into a small, warm room that smelled of soap. Jack heard Nicholas inform Clare that a second bathroom was just a little further, if she would follow him, but Jack was busy examining the water-taps. It wasn't until he leaned over and felt dampness against his knee that he realized the bath was full, and the water was hot.

Suddenly every joint in his body ached and he couldn't get out of his clothes fast enough. When Nicholas returned, Jack was neck-deep in the water with his eyes closed, hair plastered against his head.

"Mr. Graveworthy asks that you join him in the kitchen for a meal, when you are finished, and if you are not too tired," Nicholas said.

"I'm sorry," Jack answered, not opening his eyes. "I might never get out of this bath."

"Very understandable," Nicholas said. "Shall I bring your soup here?"

"Umm, no. I'll wrinkle if I'm in much longer," Jack said. Nicholas offered him a soft towel and disappeared discreetly. Jack dressed himself and did the best he could with his hair; when he appeared in the kitchen, Clare and Graveworthy were already eating, and a plate was laid with an enormous sandwich and a bowl of thick soup.

"No manners," Clare sighed, as Jack crammed half the sandwich in his mouth.

"Not much need," Graveworthy answered, cradling the bowl in one hand as he ate. "We're all hungry and tired. I thought you might rest this afternoon, and tomorrow I'll show you the university."

"And my workshop?" Jack asked.

"Yes."

"And I need to know where the library is -- "

"Jack!" Clare laughed. "Stop for breath."

Jack smiled sheepishly and ate the other half of his sandwich.

"Your eagerness is admirable," Graveworthy added. "But Miss Fields is right; you've already made progress, and I don't doubt you'll make more. This is a time to work, yes, but also to enjoy your residency here. Nicholas will help you acquire whatever you need. This weekend it's possible I'll have other guests, but I think you'll enjoy them."

"Who?" Clare asked.

"I'm not sure yet; I'll have to see who's about, or if we should go down to London. Anderson, certainly, and probably a few writers I know. Some of the Cambridge academics and engineers, perhaps. A salon, though considerably less pretentious than that sounds."

"Isn't that pretty...public?" Jack asked. "Do you want all those people knowing about us?"

"They'll be friends and people I trust; besides, sooner or later anyone who wants to know will know. Your safety in England is relative, but still far greater than your safety in America."

"We aren't committing treason or anything, are we?" Jack asked.

"No. Not legally speaking, and I truly believe not morally speaking. The politics are complicated, but you are betraying no trust of America by serving Her Majesty. In this case, you may be preventing your country from making a grave error."

"What error?" Clare asked suspiciously.

"The purpose of the machine is to transport goods and individuals into dangerous country. As sound as our motives are, America distrusts us; much of Europe as well. Apparently invading and colonizing India does not give us a sterling reputation."

"Is that where you want to go?" Jack asked. "I thought there was an express train -- "

"There is a limited amount of information that I have," Graveworthy answered. "And the less you know, the less danger you're in. Your job here is to find a way to build a workable machine and teach me to operate it. You needn't worry about the rest."

"Well, I needn't, but I probably will anyway," Jack said.

"So long as you worry constructively." Graveworthy laid down his napkin. "Would you like to see the garden house? I think you'll appreciate it."

***

The garden house, which Ellis had never much bothered with since he bought the estate, lay at the bottom of an incline, at the end of a path from the back of the main house. It was a squarish thing, but the previous owner -- some mad botanist at the University -- had knocked out the middle of each exterior wall and built odd, glassed-in naves for the more delicate, light-seeking flowers. Three walls looked as though they'd got religion; the fourth had an enormous double-door that slid aside on tracks when Ellis put his shoulder to it and shoved. Splinters of wood and dead leaves dropped from the eaves as the building vibrated.

"It should be the size you need," he said, as Jack peered into the darkness. "I've never got round to restoring it."

"It's perfect," Jack said, stepping inside and startling a mouse, who darted out past Clare's shoes. "Need to patch the windows though. Paper and some boards -- thin, flexible things," he added over his shoulder.

"There's a gas line that runs down here if you'd like to hang fittings," Ellis offered.

"Very much!" Jack said, rooting in the far corners, muttering to himself. He came up with a piece of broken porcelain.

"Planting box," Ellis said. Jack nodded and tossed it aside.

"I think I can have it workable in a day or two," Jack announced finally. Ellis had simply planned to have workmen in, but Jack seemed as though he were...

"Nesting," Clare murmured.

"I was about to say," Ellis replied.

"Oh, Jack, you've scared a rabbit," Clare called, chasing after it, heading for the oak grove beyond the building. Jack wandered back to the door again, resting his hands on his hips, the wind from outside ruffling his still-damp hair. As Ellis watched, Jack's eyes unfocused slightly and his shoulders relaxed by degrees; one hand rose in front of his face and twisted slightly, as if he were examining something that wasn't there.

"What do you see, Jack?" Ellis asked in his ear, turning to look the same direction Jack was. "When you see it completed and waiting for you. What does it look like?"

"A ship," Jack whispered back. "The boiler in the middle for stability, and a rudder aft -- but it can't be wings," he added, perplexed. "Little ones, maybe, but nothing that moves -- and the screw mechanism should be..."

He shook himself, twisting his body to look up at Ellis. "I need to find a shipyard."

"Add it to your list," Ellis said. "In the meantime, rest -- and hold that image."

"Is that how you see your books?" Jack asked. "In your head, ready for you to make them?"

"Sometimes. One giant sweep of timber and iron -- not a bad way to put it." Ellis peered into the darkened building. "Come on. Let's find Clare and go inside."

Jack smiled at him, rather trustingly considering all he'd put the boy through so far. Although -- his sense of people, honed over the years to an icepick point, told him that perhaps the smile wasn't really for him. Jack was somewhere in his own head, building a flying machine without wings, a ship that would never sail on water.

Ellis had always been a storyteller in his head, from the time he was old enough to know that there was another world he could access at any time, often better and more interesting than the one his body inhabited. He'd met other writers who felt the same, and one or two people who seemed have totally retreated into that preferred reality. Creationists had to be able to imagine what it was they wanted with startling vividness, which was why the Trade Schools in Boston stimulated their imagination -- filled the heads of their students with art and literature and science (and rightly so, in his opinion).

He had never seen an Engineer do it. They were too concerned with the reality of executing an engine design to imagine something without knowing how it would work first. Jack, he suspected, worked backwards, imagining the end product and then building selectively towards it. Well, all the better.

Jack shook himself out of his reverie and ran forward on the path, catching Clare around the waist and driving them both into an enormous pile of leaves beneath one of the trees. She shrieked and flung a handful of leaves in his face, blinding him; he flopped into the pile and sent them fluttering everywhere, tugging her down by her ankles when she tried to escape.

Ellis sighed. This was the pair who were supposed to save the Empire from war with Australia. Or cause a world war of epic proportions with Australian resources supporting the Empire, depending on who you spoke to. An Australian-born Creationist with more intellect than she knew what to do with and a half-educated Engineer who possessed the social maturity of a six-year-old.

He wasn't certain international politics was ready for all this.

Chapter Six

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

chicleeblair.livejournal.com

Lovely final scene.

Although I am getting a little tired of references to how young Clare and Jack are. They're nineteen. It's not that young, not even to thirty-four year-old Graveworthy.

From:

matt_doyle

I'm not sure. I'm twenty-seven, live in a college town, and all the nineteen-year-olds I meet seem terribly young to me. Heck, most of the twenty or twenty-one-year-olds do, too. Some of the twenty-four year olds, though less commonly.

((On the other hand, my sister is twenty-three, and in every way that matters she's older than I am.))

Anyway, I want to stress that I'm not saying you're wrong about nineteen not being that young -- I'm saying that I think it's relative, depending on who's talking.

From:

chicleeblair.livejournal.com

Right, but they've been referred to as "children" and "youngsters" quite a lot....

From:

matt_doyle

i see what you're saying, but I really don't find it nearly as jarring (or jarring at all). But that's just me.

As to frequency, once you'd pointed it out it did feel frequent to me, but I wanted to go back and count to eliminate confirmation bias. Counting all applications of "young" or 'child" with relation to jack and Clare, I got four times this chapter, four times last chapter, three times each in chapters two and three, once in chapter one -- but in chapters three and earlier, it was usually not stressing their youth, usually just using "young man" or "young woman" as a basic descriptor.

So it has been more frequent, and more paternalistic, in the last two chapters. Not sure how it compares to other adjectives and descriptors.

From:

Sam Starbuck's Original Novels

The Dead Isle: Chapter Five

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