In a world of steamships and Progress, no one who sails due south across the Wild Sea ever returns.
No one knows why.
Dale Mortensen intends to solve the mystery. With the help of an old sailor and a reformed playboy searching for his missing sweetheart, he locates a captain and crew ambitious—not to mention crazy—enough to undertake the journey across the Wild Sea.
The Infinity and her crew sail south, but the truth of what really lies on the other side of the horizon is more amazing—and terrifying—than anything they can imagine.
It’s the adventure of a lifetime—and it may just get Dale and his friends killed.
Find out how this Young Adult steampunk adventure unfolds chapter-by-chapter every Thursday! Click here to start from the beginning. Or if you want to read it at your own pace, buy the ebook for $7.99 from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords or Sony, or get it as a trade paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Depository.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HORIZON
E. R. PASKEY
FOURTEEN
THE INFINITY SET SAIL TWO DAYS LATER.
The only other sailor Captain Ruben had found willing to risk the voyage was a weasel of a man clearly looking for a way to skip town. Recognizing this, Ruben passed on hiring him. The good news was that they need not to worry about being robbed blind in their sleep. The bad news was that it cemented the fact that they would be undertaking this venture with a skeleton crew.
Before they departed, Dale stopped by the bank to ensure his instructions about what he wanted done with his money in the event that something happened to him at sea remained in effect. Then he stopped in the Bonny Swan to tell Mrs. Puca that he and Raphael had found another berth. News of his impending journey, however, had reached the pub before he even darkened the doorway.
Dale had no idea how it happened—Ruben had been very discreet in his advertising. If he had to lay money down though, Dale was willing to bet that the weasel spread the news in retaliation for being rejected. It seemed his type of petty revenge.
Mrs. Puca was nearly beside herself when she caught sight of Dale. “What do you think you’re doing!” she shouted, marching over to him like an avenging grandmother. “Sailing the Wild Sea in that direction! Have you lost your senses?”
A hush fell over the rest of the pub. The few people inside for a late lunch at this hour abandoned their food in favor of watching the drama unfolding before them.
Mrs. Puca took Dale by the elbows—she was not tall enough to grab him any higher—and attempted to literally shake some sense into him. “Your mother and father would be rolling in their graves if they heard about this!”
“That’s just it, Mrs. Puca,” said Dale gently. “They don’t have graves. They were swept out to sea. I want to know what’s out there.”
Tears welled up in the older woman’s eyes. “I’ll tell you what’s out there, child!” She waved dramatically in the direction of the ocean. “Death is out there, that’s what!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Don’t you read the papers? That dirigible vanished not too long ago, never to be heard from again. And now you want to go out there and disappear too?”
Dale swallowed his frustration and attempted to calm his landlady, well aware of the attention they were gathering. “I’m doing the right thing. I know it might not seem that way, but it is.”
“You’re such a levelheaded young man! How can you let yourself be swept into this?!” Mrs. Puca launched into a diatribe involving Inzin and what she would do to him should he ever be unwise enough to darken the door of her pub again.
Catching everyone’s stares out of the corner of his eye, Dale resolved to wrap this up quickly, before things grew worse. He glanced around wildly, looking for Ophelia, and found her with her back pressed against the doorway to the kitchen, watching them with wide eyes. He waved her over. “I think Mrs. Puca could use a cup of tea.”
“A cup of tea?!” she cried. “I’m going to need a whole pot after this!” She fisted her hands in his shirt. “Is there no way I can talk you out of going, Dale? It breaks my heart to see you throw your life away!”
“I’m not throwing anything away,” explained Dale patiently. “This is an opportunity—a chance to explore something no one’s dared talk about in years.”
“With good reason! Bad things happen to them that sail south!”
Dale sensed he was fighting a losing argument. Instead of continuing, he wrapped his arms around Mrs. Puca in a gentle hug and kissed her cheek. “Take care, Mrs. Puca. I’ll be back.”
She drew in a sharp breath and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.
Dale felt horrible about leaving her in such a state, but he had to get back to the ship. I didn’t expect her to fall apart on me. Stepping away from the tiny woman, he glanced around the pub.
Everyone was staring at him, but as soon as he moved, they were all suddenly very busy looking anywhere but at him.
As he reached the door, however, one old man called out, “You’re crazy to try it, lad.”
Dale saluted the man and left without replying.
On his way back to the docks, he posted a letter to Gail, telling her he was going to be at sea and not to worry if she did not hear from him for a while. Once, early on, he had forgotten to tell her that, and he arrived back in Port Ruby to a bundle of increasingly panicked letters. He returned to the Infinity in time for Captain Ruben’s announcement that they were indeed setting sail the following morning.
That night, Raphael’s constant tossing and turning on the bunk above were not conducive to drifting off, but Dale did sleep at last. He woke when the bells rang at dawn. For a moment, he lay staring up at the bottom of Raphael’s bunk, his heart pounding in his chest. It’s time. It’s finally time.
His face split with a wide grin and he hauled himself out of his bunk. He shook Raphael. “Wake up! It’s time!”
Raphael shot straight up, banging his head on the overhead in the process. He let out a few choice words in his native language before excitement overrode the pain. In no time at all, the two of them were hurrying to the galley for breakfast.
The next two hours were a flurry of last minute preparations. Dale disappeared into the engine room to get the engine going, and the Infinity finally eased her way out of the harbor and out into open sea.
Garr relieved him at supper time; he was not an engineer, but he knew enough to give the engineer a rest. Dale thanked him with a nod and headed to the galley. Minh handed him food without a word and Dale took it up to the top deck.
The sun was slanting golden across the water; a fresh wind blew from the east. They were far enough from land now that it was not even visible on the horizon behind them. A peaceful feeling settled over Dale. This was his favorite part of sailing, when he and the ship were just tiny specks on a vast expanse of blue waves.
Leaning over the railing, he turned his head to study the horizon they were approaching. It looked the same as it had every other time he had sailed this sea. He studied it a moment longer, before pushing off the railing and going in search of Belly. I need to ask him a few things.
~oOo~
DALE found Belly in the pilot room with Captain Ruben. Belly was leaning over a chart; Ruben stood at the helm. Dale nodded to him as he crossed the threshold. “Captain.”
“Mortensen.” Ruben returned his nod, but continued to steer the Infinity. “What brings you up here?”
“Came to talk to Belly for a moment, sir.” Dale hesitated and then added, “About what we’re expecting to find when we do reach the middle of the Wild Sea.”
“Ah, yes.” Ruben’s eyes glinted with sudden understanding. “Let me guess, lad. You’ve spent so much time wondering what we’ll find out there, that now that we’re this close,” he held his thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart, “you’ve suddenly realized you don’t know what you’ll do with that knowledge.”
Dale had to laugh. “I think that about sums it up.”
“We’re all wonderin’ that,” Belly informed him bluntly, looking up from his chart. “The sea’s so big we don’t think about the knowledge we do have. Look at this.” He jabbed a finger at a large section on the chart south of their current position, helpfully circled in black ink. “From all accounts, this is where things get murky. Nobody who’s ever attempted to sail through here,” he pointed to the large circle, “has ever emerged on the other side or come back to tell the tale.”
“I know that much.” Dale traced a finger over the black line, wondering how far inside that black line Peabody had gotten before he and his dirigible vanished.
“At the rate we’re sailing,” said Ruben, “we should be over that line by tomorrow evening.” His smile turned grim. “We will succeed. The Infinity will not disappear into the night, never to be heard from again. I refuse to let that happen.”
Fair enough. Dale turned to leave. “I’ll be heading back to my post now, sir.”
“Good.”
~oOo~
RAPHAEL was in the engine room pestering Garr when Dale returned.
“Took you long enough,” growled the second mate, before shooting Raphael a look of intense dislike and leaving the room.
Dale commenced taking instrument readings, but glanced sideways at his friend. “What did you do to him now?”
“I did nothing.” Raphael leaned back on his filthy hands, his dark eyes half-amused, half-serious. “I merely talked to him. He does not like answering questions. Nor did he seem at all interested in my life story.”
“Your life story?” Dale shot him a sharp look, but relaxed when he saw the grin hovering on his friend’s face. “You shouldn’t go out of your way to irritate him.”
Raphael lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I did not have to go out of my way. The man is, how do you say, a wet blanket?”
Dale had to agree with that. “Still, he’s an officer.”
“He was berating Yutha for dropping a bottle of salt this morning,” continued Raphael. “I have the feeling he does not care for children.”
“Can’t say I disagree with you. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I did not like how he handled it.”
Raphael’s voice was so quiet and stern that Dale stopped what he was doing to raise an eyebrow at him. “Are we talking another Jack Rivers?” Rivers had been the first mate on one of the first ships they worked on together; he suffered neither fools nor sailors slack in their work.
“No. Karl Sanchez.”
That brought Dale up short. Sanchez, on the other hand, had been a perpetually angry captain of a tramp steamer they had crossed paths with on a voyage to Elpis. It had not taken long for their current captain and the rest of their crew to realize that Sanchez’s crew feared and hated him. He was a bully and something of a sadist; Dale, Raphael, and the rest of the crew on their current post had been happy to part ways with that steamer.
Dale had gotten a sense that Garr could be a bully, but not an overly sadistic one. “What happened?”
“He grabbed Yutha by the collar and pinned him up against the wall while he shouted at him.”
“What did Minh say?” Dale could not imagine the cook would have let Garr get away with that, second mate or no second mate.
Raphael shook his head. “He was not there. I was the only witness.” His face was troubled. “The boy is Inzin’s son in everything but blood—I do not think he knows.”
“And you’re wondering if you should tell him what you saw.”
“I am.” Raphael shrugged unhappily. “I do not wish to be the bearer of tales, but at the same time…”
“The Infinity isn’t that big,” said Dale grimly. “If this continues and Yutha doesn’t say anything, Inzin will find out eventually.” To stave off the mildly disappointed look on his friend’s face, he said, “He’ll find out because either you or I will tell him.”
Raphael’s expression cleared. “Yes.”
Find out how this Young Adult steampunk adventure unfolds chapter-by-chapter every Thursday! Or if you want to keep reading right now, buy the ebook for $7.99 from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords or Sony, or get it as a trade paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Depository.
Copyright © 2013 E. R. Paskey