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
THIRTEEN
A HEAVY KNOCK SOUNDED ON THE DOOR. Ruben nodded to Inzin, who opened it. A familiar figure with a mechanical leg stumped inside.
“Well, did they take yer offer, Captain?” Belly Skoog cast a keen look around the room.
“You know very well they did, Belly,” replied Ruben.
Dale was hard-pressed to keep his mouth from dropping open. “You’re coming with us?”
Belly looked at him like he was a very stupid child. “Of course I am. Ya don’t think I’d let him,” he jerked a thumb toward Ruben, “sail off into the sunset an’ solve the mystery without me?”
“Would you?” asked Raphael with interest.
“‘Course not. Who else’ll be quartermaster?”
“I’m sure I could find someone,” said Ruben dryly.
Belly snorted. “Good luck with that, old friend. You’ve picked a strange time to go gallivantin’ off. Half the sailors in Port Ruby are shakin’ in their boots at the mere thought of sailin’ south on the Wild Sea an’ the other half are pretendin’ they ain’t shakin’ in their boots.”
“Your arithmetic is flawed, my friend. That would rule out the sane, sound men of our ilk.” Raphael sounded like he was enjoying himself.
Belly shot him a glare capable of melting cannons. “Aye, an’ it’d be best if ya keep such thoughts to yerself in the future. You’ve only been a sailor for six months.”
“But I am a sailor now,” said Raphael with a sunny smile. “And I will be going on this venture.”
“Gentlemen, if you wish to squabble like children, kindly take it outside of my cabin,” warned Ruben. He apparently intended to needle Belly, for his old friend turned on him with a wounded expression. “Don’t give me that look, Belly. You’d be at it all night if I didn’t shut you up.” He flicked his fingers at them. “You’re dismissed, the lot of you.”
“I do actually have a report to make, Cap’n,” said Belly.
Ruben looked at him. “Fine. You can stay.” He directed his gaze to Inzin. “Please have someone show our two newest shipmates to their berths.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Dale and Raphael followed the first mate out into the passageway. Inzin looked askance at them. “You didn’t leave anything back at that pub, did you?” When they shook their heads, he bellowed, “Yutha!”
A skinny black boy in his early teens barreled around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of Inzin. Standing at attention, he saluted. “Aye, sir?”
Dale looked sideways at Raphael, but his friend was observing the boy with amusement.
“These are our new shipmates. Mortensen and Avarez.” Inzin motioned to them each in turn. “Take them down to Deck Four and get them settled in.”
“Aye, sir!”
Inzin returned to Ruben’s quarters for the conference with Belly, while Yutha looked Dale and Raphael up and down. “You aimin’ to take on the Wild Sea?” he challenged.
“Been waiting my whole life,” said Dale.
Yutha looked expectantly at Raphael.
“I have been waiting since the moment the love of my life disappeared,” announced Raphael.
Yutha made a face. “You’re doing this for some girl?”
Raphael patted him on the head, much to the boy’s disgust. “You will understand when you are older.”
“You’re jokin’.” The boy looked up at Dale—he was two feet shorter—and tilted his head in Raphael’s direction. “He always like this?”
Dale nodded.
The boy muttered something in a foreign language under his breath and stalked off down the passageway.
He led them down two decks to a cabin with a tiny porthole. “This is where you’ll be unless the Cap’n or Mr. Inzin move you.”
“Thank you,” said Dale.
Raphael glanced at the top bunk. “I am sleeping up there.” He turned laughing eyes on Dale. “I have no desire to find out how sturdy those bunks are.”
Considering he would probably squash his friend flat should he land on him, Dale understood. With a good-natured grin, he took the bottom bunk. “Now what?” he asked Yutha.
The boy shrugged. “Come and meet the rest of the crew.”
“You the cabin boy, then?” asked Dale.
The boy beanpole grinned. “Aye, that’d be me.” His teeth were blindingly white against his dark skin. “Mr. Kyle used to call me ‘Chatterbox’, but I’ve grown out of it.” He leaned against the bulkhead, in no apparent hurry to leave.
He sounded so earnest about it that Dale managed to restrain the grin that had sprung to his face.
Raphael, on the other hand, did nothing of the sort. Laughing merrily, he cocked an eyebrow at the teenager. “And I suppose you are joining us on this venture?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Yutha enthusiastically. His slightly rounded face was alight with excitement.
“Your family won’t worry?” asked Dale. He could not help himself; the boy reminded him of his younger cousins. He shuddered to think what Aunt Helen—not to mention Uncle Liev—would say about something like this.
“Nope.” Yutha shrugged. “Mr. Kyle is all I got. He took me in when I was a little shaver.” He spread his arms akimbo. “The Infinity is my home.”
Later, Inzin himself would explain the boy’s history to Dale, including how he’d found him on the streets near the docks trying to wake his dead mother. But for now, Dale and Raphael listened to the boy rattle on.
“Mr. Kyle didn’t want me coming at first,” admitted Yutha. “But I didn’t want to leave an’ the Cap’n said I’m old enough to choose for myself.” He delivered this last bit with a great deal of pride.
Raphael leaned forward to shake his hand. “Congratulations.”
Grinning ear to ear, Yutha jerked a thumb toward the cabin door. “Come down an’ meet the rest of the crew.”
‘The rest of the crew’, as they learned after Yutha bounced all the way down to the galley, was a woefully inadequate group. And by ‘woefully inadequate’, Dale really meant, ‘skeleton of a skeleton crew’. A short man with large, slanted eyes and a blue bandanna tied around his head to hold back his black hair sat at a table playing cards with a wiry, brown-skinned young man with a cratered face. His dark hair was tied back in a ponytail and had a bright red feather threaded through it.
He was the first to look up and see them trailing behind Yutha—not that the boy took long to introduce them.
“Dale Mortensen, engineer,” announced Yutha brightly, “and Raphael Franco Avarez, stoker.” He then gestured to the man with the bandanna and the man with the feather in turn. “Mr. Minh, our cook, and Manji, also a stoker.”
“Not to be confused with ‘mangy’,” said the man in question, who proceeded to sound his name out carefully. He caught the glance Dale and Raphael shared and shrugged. “It’s happened.” He looked the two of them up and down. “So, two more for the voyage then, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Raphael. “Captain Ruben was kind enough to take us on.”
Minh motioned to the empty chairs at the table with one hand. “Join us. The stakes are still low.”
“Thanks.” Dale took the chair on his left. Raphael took one across the table from him. Both dug in their pockets for ante money.
Minh shook his head in Yutha’s direction when the boy also tried to claim a chair in the game. “Remember what Inzin told you the last time you played with us?”
Yutha tried to keep his expression blank, but failed; his expression fell. He scuffed one bare foot along the deck. “He said he’d string me up on the mainmast.”
Minh nodded solemnly, his hands automatically shuffling the worn deck of cards he held. “And why is that?”
“Because I have a terrible poker face.”
“Exactly.” Minh began dealing cards with quick little flicks of his fingers. “You can watch, but nothing else.”
Yutha collapsed on a chair at the other end of the table with a sullen look on his face that did not suit him. He only had a few moments to kick his heels against the rails, however, before someone—Inzin, from the sound of it—bellowed his name. He jumped up and took off out of the galley like someone had attached little steam engines to his feet.
Manji watched him leave, grinning over his shoulder. He turned back to the others with an amused shake of his head. “That boy is terrible at cards. No poker face and no luck at all. He lost a whole week’s pay before Inzin collared him and forbid him to play.”
Picking up his cards, Dale wondered who Yutha had been up against. A second later, Minh answered that question for him.
Looking at Manji from under his eyebrows, he said, “You didn’t have to take the whole week’s pay.”
Manji twitched a shoulder in a shrug. “He has to learn his limitations somehow. I might as well be the one to benefit.” He fixed Minh with a challenging look. “I told you I was planning to stop after that. It’s just that our new first mate came along and got in the way first.”
Minh did not answer, but Dale had the distinct impression the cook did not believe his friend. His attention caught, however, on the last part of Manji’s statement. “What happened to your old first mate?”
“Didn’t fancy sailing south.” Manji laid a card down on the table.
“He has a wife and a couple of children,” supplied Minh in a low voice. “Didn’t want to risk something happening to him on a venture like this.”
“And you?” Temporarily forgetting the cards in his hand, Raphael leaned forward. “Why are you going?”
Dark eyes flicked to Raphael’s face. “Don’t have anywhere else to be.” Minh’s tone implied that was all the answer he would give, if pressed.
“I see.” Raphael turned his attention to Manji. “And what of you?”
Dale glanced at Manji as well. He was already forming an opinion of the other young man as a self-serving—though cheerful—opportunist. The sailor’s next words confirmed that.
“The adventure, of course. Money, glory, all of it.” He waved a hand. “I admit it seems a tad dangerous, but I’m sure it’s nothin’ we can’t handle.”
“Let’s hope so.” Minh threw a coin into the center of the table. “Call.”
The four of them spent the next few minutes in amiable conversation, exchanging tidbits about where they were from, which ports they had visited, and, of those ports, which they liked the best. Minh was from a coastal town north of Port Ruby, Manji from a small seaside town just at the border between Varangia and Selendria.
Dale suddenly recalled the silent man keeping watch at the gangplank above. Tipping his head in that direction, he asked, “Who’s guarding the top deck?”
Minh and Manji exchanged glances. “Oh, him.” Manji picked another card. “That’d be the Captain’s second mate, Phineas Garr.”
“Did he get promoted as well?” inquired Raphael, without looking up.
The two men exchanged glances again. “You could call it that,” said Minh shortly. “Like to be captain, that one would.”
Manji snorted. “Wouldn’t we all? Can’t really blame him.”
Minh shot him a stern look as he reshuffled the cards, but said nothing.
That’s interesting, thought Dale.
“He’s nothing to worry about, at any rate,” continued Manji. “All bluster, no teeth.” He scowled, obviously remembering something. “Except when he’s trying to get under your skin.”
“Calls him Mangy.” Minh tipped his head toward the other man.
Manji’s scowl deepened. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“You were already there.” Minh took one look at his cards and threw them down in disgust. “I’m hungry. Anyone else?”
At the mention of food, Dale’s stomach growled. He half-raised a hand. “I am. We’d just arrived at the pub when we learned Mr. Inzin was waiting for us.”
Raphael agreed.
Minh directed a flat look at the back of Manji’s head as he left his chair and began moving around the galley. “Don’t have to ask you—every time I turn around you and Yutha are filching something.”
“Aye,” returned Manji cheerfully. “I’d say I’m still growing, but it doesn’t appear to be true.” He patted his stomach. “I just have a healthy appetite.” He gave Dale an appraising look. “By the size of you, I’d say you do too.”
Dale just shrugged. It took a lot of fuel to keep his body going. Nothing he could do about that.
A few moments’ hustle and bustle later, Minh returned with two loaves of bread, a block of cheese, a handful of dried figs, and a clump of dried seaweed. He offered this to Dale and Raphael to try. “Eat up now, before we’re on sea rations.”
Raphael took one look at the seaweed—though he did manage to keep a straight face—and shook his head. “Thank you, but no.”
Dale took a piece and saluted Minh with it before chewing it. He almost laughed at the look on Raphael’s face. “I’ve had it before,” he explained around a mouthful.
Within five minutes of Minh bringing out food, Yutha skidded into the galley again. He tore off a hunk of bread, sliced himself a piece of cheese, and settled down in a corner to inhale it. Before he took his first bite, however, he said, “Manji, Cap’n wants you take next watch.”
“Right.” Tossing down his cards, Manji collected his winnings—he’d done all right this evening, though Raphael had done better—and departed to relieve Garr.
The second mate tromped through the galley a few minutes later—probably, Dale suspected, to inspect the newest additions to the crew. In the lantern light, Dale made out the details he had not caught in the dark when they first arrived aboard the Infinity.
Garr was a big man, though not nearly as tall as Dale himself, and on the heavy side. He had short gray hair, a bushy gray beard to match, and years under the sun had burned his skin to a perpetual brick red. He eyed the two of them like they were strange beings who had wandered aboard off the streets. “Which one of you is the engineer?”
“I am.” Dale rose from his seat and extended a hand. “Dale Mortensen.”
Garr just looked at him. “Aren’t you a little young to be an engineer, son?”
The hackles on the back of his neck rose; Dale dropped his hand. “I know what I need to know.”
“An’ who determines that?” Garr folded his beefy arms across his chest, shaking his head. “I don’t know what the captain was thinking.”
“He was thinkin’ that these two young men will prove fine additions to the crew,” said a voice from behind him.
Garr turned around. “Skoog.” He made no effort to keep the disdain from his voice.
Belly stood in the doorway to the galley, regarding the bigger man with equal distaste. “The Cap’n knows what he’s doin’, Garr, never fear.”
“Of course he does.” With a final disapproving look at Dale and Raphael, Garr squeezed past Belly into the passageway and disappeared into the nether regions of the ship.
When his footsteps had faded away, Belly shook his head. “I do admit I don’t quite know what Ruben was thinkin’, havin’ us both on the Infinity together.”
Dale would have given a day’s wages to know the story behind that, but knew better than to pry.
Raphael, however, could have given the old busybodies in Falconcrest a run for their money. “Was there a woman involved?” he asked lazily, twirling a finger in the air. “For the two of you to dislike each other so thoroughly?”
Belly gave him a scathing look that could have burned a hole right through the hull. “You’ve got women on the brain, lad.”
“Am I wrong?” persisted Raphael.
“Yes,” said Belly shortly, “an’ that’s all I’ll say about it.”
Raphael shrugged and spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture.
Nice try, Raphael, thought Dale.
When he and Raphael had retired for the night, however, the shorter man’s voice floated down from the top bunk. “There is bad blood between Belly and our second mate, I think.”
“You think?” Snorting, Dale locked his hands behind his head. “The Captain doesn’t strike me as the sort who likes having a powder keg about to explode on his ship. They must be good sailors.”
“Must be.” Raphael paused. “But if you take out woman trouble, my friend, that leaves us with an unsettling selection of reasons why they dislike each other.”
A few of those reasons flitted across Dale’s mind; he shoved them aside. “Sometimes, people just don’t like each other. Surely you’re familiar with that.”
“In my experience, there tends to be a reason. Perhaps irrational or stupid, but a reason nonetheless.” Raphael’s voice darkened. “We may be at sea for some time and this ship is not that big. I would rather not set sail with the potential for the powder keg, as you put it, to explode.”
“I don’t think we have much of a choice.”
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