Longcock and Vashon know to keep an eye on him.” She took a deep breath, met his eyes. “How many of the aviators have decided to leave?”
“One, but not because of New Eden.”
“Only one?” Astonishment swept across her expression, and a pained emotion that wasn’t relief or gratitude, but somewhere in between. She’d thought it would be much worse, he realized. “Who was it? What was the reason?”
“It was Suskind, the third engineer. A letter caught up to him in Port Fallow yesterday, almost six months out. His wife is due to deliver their first child within a week or two now, and when he saw that we were bringing on three months’ worth of supplies, he asked for leave.”
“God forbid that it takes three months,” Yasmeen said softly. “Suskind? Goddammit. They’re already short by a shoveler. Has Farnsburrow said how he’ll split the third’s duties?”
The head engineer hadn’t made that decision yet, because he was waiting for Yasmeen’s. “I offered to take them.”
Yasmeen frowned at him. “You’re not trained as a stoker.”
“Not for the engines, but under full steam, the third will spend most of his time shoveling coal. If there’s a problem with the engines or pipes on my watch, I’ll call on Farnsburrow.”
“You can’t be crew.”
Because it would upset the order of authority on the ship—where he already possessed an odd standing outside of the normal rankings, as it was. He knew she worried that his presence in the engine room might put Farnsburrow in the awkward position of giving orders to the captain’s husband.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve told Farnsburrow that I wouldn’t be signing on, just helping out. Just as I’ve helped out on the deck before. None of the aviators gave me orders when something needed to be done; they gave me directions about how to do it.”
It was a small distinction, but an important one. Her frown smoothed and she nodded. “So they did.”
“So I’ll just be there to help shovel during the third’s watch—and I’ll need to do it,” he added. “We had to disassemble the pugilist machine to make room for the autogyros and the extra coal in the cargo hold. I won’t be off this airship for a while, so I might as well sweat at the heart of her.”
Her expression didn’t soften, but he saw the sudden understanding in her eyes. Books and journals would keep him occupied on this journey, but not enough. “You’ll sweat,” she said. “Did Farnsburrow tell you the third’s hours?”
Two shifts every day, one in the dead of night. He nodded. “I’ll survive.”
“He might feel obligated to give you the first’s hours. Don’t let him.”
“I won’t.”
“All right. Your watch starts in thirty minutes, Mr. Fox.” Her lips curved as her gaze moved down his length. “You’ll probably want to change your clothing before you begin shoveling coal into a furnace for four hours.”
He sighed. “The one drawback.”
She laughed and started down the ladder. “I suggest you wear the clothes you use to avoid the zombies. They’re already black.”
* * *
It didn’t matter which clothes he wore. By the middle of his second shift, he’d stripped down to his breeches, sweating from the heat of the furnace and the exertion, covered in coal dust and breathing the engine room’s thick air, humid with steam from the boiler. God, he loved it. Though not exciting in the slightest, the work pushed his body harder than the automaton had. His muscles would pay for it later, he knew, with soreness and exhaustion—and it would likely take a few days to become accustomed to this new schedule. During salvaging runs, he often went weeks on little sleep, but the constant threat of zombies kept him alert, aware of everything around him, and relishing the thrill of every foreign sound.
This offered a different sort of bliss—not from danger, but of shutting everything out. He stuffed cotton into his ears to muffle the deafening roar of the engines, and though his sweat belonged to the furnace, he had his brain to himself for a stretch of four hours.
His head was never a dull place to be.
Naturally, on that night Yasmeen occupied most of his thoughts. She was always a surprise to him. The most incredible surprise. And he’d always known that he’d enjoyed a fair amount of good luck in his life, but her love for him led to an inescapable truth:
Archimedes Fox was the single luckiest man to ever walk the Earth.
So it should be written…and as soon as