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 $6.99 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
TWENTY-FIVE
“I AM GREGOR SIVAK.” SIVAK SPREAD HIS hands. “This is my mining operation.”
Some sort of reply seemed warranted. Clearing his throat, Dale cast about for words. “It’s much larger than I expected.”
This was apparently the right thing to say. The corners of Sivak’s mouth turned up a half-inch. “You are perhaps wondering why you are here, yes?”
Oh, yes, thought Dale.
“You are perhaps thinking to yourself that because you are a tall, strong young man that any jobs for you must include hard labor, yes?”
Dale thought he knew where this was going. “I’m not afraid of hard work, sir.”
A split-second after the words left his mouth, it occurred to him that Sivak would probably take that as license to toss him into the deepest, darkest hole he could find. Fear gripped him, made his palms sweaty. Not down in a hole, please.
His fellow boarders had implied Sivak possessed a sadistic sense of humor. Does that mean he’s the sort to deliberately throw a man into a situation he fears? wondered Dale. Surely that doesn’t help production.
Sivak’s eyes narrowed. “No?”
“No, sir.”
“I see.” Sivak regarded him for a few seconds, assessing him with a look that made Dale feel he was being dissected. “You are a sailor, I understand, so naturally you have no fear of water?”
“No, sir.” That, at least, was something in his favor.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you handle working in enclosed spaces?”
“To a point, sir. I—” Dale swallowed; his throat had gone very dry. “I don’t think I’d do well underground.”
Sivak did not reply; he merely nodded slowly as though confirming something to himself before consulting a piece of paper on his desk. “I understand you came through the Rift on a steam-sailer. Is that the only class of ship on which you have ever sailed?”
Dale seized the chance to return to familiar ground with both hands. “The Infinity was a steam-sailer, yes, sir, but I spent two years on steamers before that.”
“Doing what?”
“I started as a stoker and worked my way up to an engineer. I was chief engineer on the Infinity.”
“I take it then that you possess a measure of mechanical experience.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sivak waved an impatient hand toward Obo, who immediately passed him a clean sheet of paper. Sivak scrawled a brief note with a fountain pen, folded the paper into thirds, and fastened it with a seal of hot wax in the shape of a hammer and tongs. He scribbled a name on the front and extended this letter to Dale. “Take this to Otto Vandergild at the Processor.”
Dale accepted the letter with a nod. That’s it? “Thank you, sir.”
Sivak brushed Dale’s words aside with a flick of his fingers and turned back to his paperwork. Without a word, Obo rounded his desk to show Dale out. He led Dale back to the main office and disappeared before Dale could ask him where the Processor was located.
That left the dragon lady. Miss Underly still manned her desk, her back ramrod straight. Dale sucked in a fortifying breath and approached her. She did not look up. He had expected that, however, and simply launched into his question. “Excuse me, Miss Underly. Could you tell me where to find the Processor?”
Very slowly, Miss Underly raised her head. “The Processor?” Her tone was a cross between surprise and suspicious disbelief.
In answer, Dale showed her the name written on the letter.
Her eyes widened and then narrowed. “Two buildings down on the right,” she said curtly.
“Thank you.” Dale turned to leave, but her voice called him back.
“Mr. Mortensen, you’ll need this.” She held a white piece of card stock out to him.
Dale took it from her in some confusion, but it cleared when he realized he held a time card and Miss Underly had written in—and initialed—his arrival at nine o’clock sharp. He looked from the time card to her. “Thank you.”
She sniffed and turned back to her ledgers.
Armed with letter and time card, Dale left the main office building and headed up the cobblestoned street to a building he hoped to God was the Processor. Sure enough, as he drew closer, a sign over the door spelled out its name. Breathing a tiny sigh of relief, he pulled open the heavy front door and stepped inside.
His eyes had barely adjusted to the dim light inside when a rough voice drawled, “My, my, we’re late this morning. That ain’t gonna go over well at all. You’d better have a good explanation thought up, lad.”
Dale turned in the direction of the voice, which belonged to a barrel-chested man sitting behind a desk with his boots propped up on a corner. “I’ve just come from the main office, actually.”
“Blimey.” The man squinted at him. “You’re a big ‘un, ain’t ya? Who are you? Don’t think I’ve seen your ugly mug before.”
Dale introduced himself and added, “I have a letter for Mr. Vandergild from Mr. Sivak.”
“You do, do ya?” The man let his booted feet hit the floor. “You’d better hope you have a time card too, lad, because if there’s one thing Vandergild hates worse’n Interference, it’s latecomers.”
“Have that too.” Dale patted his shirtfront pocket, where he’d slid his time card to keep from accidentally dropping it.
“Let me see.” When Dale hesitated, the man sighed and beckoned impatiently for him to just hand it over. “My job to make sure everybody clocks in, isn’t it?” He snatched the card out of Dale’s reluctant fingers and scanned it. “Well, you’re in luck. The old bat initialed it.”
“Doesn’t she always?”
“Not hardly.” The man snorted. “She hates latecomers as much as Vandergild. Doesn’t matter to either of ‘em if a body’s a New Arrival or Model Employee.” He abruptly grinned at Dale, revealing two gold teeth. “And you, lad, are a New Arrival.”
“I am.” Dale was amused, despite himself. “But you probably guessed that when I introduced myself.”
The man waved an unconcerned hand before jerking a thumb toward himself. “Harry Lowell.” He glanced back toward a massive hallway leading back into the building and his face took on a more serious cast. “Better get you to Vandergild. Come on.”
Lowell led Dale down the hall toward a set of heavy double doors, and Dale thought he heard the sounds of heavy machinery. What exactly do they do in Processing? he wondered. Process ore?
When Lowell opened one of the doors, they met a deafening wall of sound unlike anything Dale had ever before experienced. They stood on a metal platform extending along the perimeter of a massive pit filled with machinery. A metal staircase ahead of them descended into the pit. Small figures rushed back and forth below bursts of steam wafting up to the ceiling; shouts blended with clanks, thuds, and a thunderous mechanical grinding.
Dale had about three seconds to take in the sight below him before his guide hurried him to a door along the wall to their right and opened it to reveal a dim hallway. As soon as the door shut behind them, the noise died. The sudden silence left Dale’s ears ringing. He noticed Lowell smirking at him and raised his eyebrows.
“You get used to it,” said Lowell with a shrug. He stopped in front of a door marked ‘Manager’ and rapped sharply on it with his knuckles.
“What?” barked a harried, irritated voice.
“New Arrival for ya, boss.”
A brief pause. Then, “Come in.”
Lowell nodded to Dale. “There ya go, lad.” He waited until Dale opened the door before returning to his post.
“New Arrival, eh?” asked the voice as Dale entered the room.
Dale found himself in a sparse office, looking at a tall, spare man with black eyes and steel gray hair. “Mr. Vandergild, I’m Dale Mortensen. Mr. Sivak told me to give this to you.” He extended the sealed letter to the man.
“I’m sure he did.” Vandergild took the letter from him gingerly, almost as if he expected the paper to bite him. He slit the seal with a letter opener that looked like it had been fashioned from glitterglass and skimmed its contents. A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only expression he allowed himself before he dropped the letter to his desk and looked at Dale.
It was a keen, assessing look, and Dale kept his shoulders straight beneath it. I have a bad feeling about this. What exactly had Sivak written in that blasted letter?
Vandergild took an unexpected tack. “How long have you been in Rift City?”
Caught off-guard, it took Dale a beat longer to mentally tally up the days. “Two weeks, sir.”
“Had any trouble, gotten into any fights?”
“No, sir.” Dale almost laughed in bewilderment. Haven’t been out and about long enough to piss anybody off. That was Raphael’s specialty.
Vandergild nodded to the letter. “Sivak is sending you to the Platform, which I also oversee.” When Dale’s expression remained blank, he snorted. “Clearly, you have no notion of what that even is. Typical.” Dropping into his chair, he waved a long-fingered hand for Dale to take one of the chairs opposite his desk.
“For the record, sir,” said Dale as he eased himself into the chair, “I don’t know much about anything in Rift City. I heard someone mention the Platform this morning, but I don’t know what it is.”
Vandergild studied Dale again, as though expecting to find the answers he wanted written somewhere on his person. “I don’t often get New Arrivals at the Platform. Naturally we get sailors with mechanical experience now and then when the Rift pulls ships through, but if I see any of them, Sivak’s put them downstairs.” He nodded in the pit’s direction. “And now, in the space of a week, I’ve had two additions to the Platform crew.”
Dale could only stare at him in perplexity. The latter part of his comment, however, triggered a response before he could think the better of it. “Did you get a man called Belly Skoog?”
“Friend of yours?” asked Vandergild dryly.
“Yes, sir. He was part of my crew.”
Vandergild nodded, as though things were finally beginning to make sense. “Of course he was.”
Well. That was odd. “What will I be doing, sir?”
Vandergild waved his question away. “That’ll be up to the foreman to decide.”
Dale tried a different tack. “What is the Platform, exactly?”
“It’s a drilling platform just off the southern coast. Drills for glitter-oil, which is used to make glitterglass.” Vandergild eyed him, as though waiting for something. When Dale remained silent, he nodded. “You’ve been here just long enough to know about the dangers of being near water, but not long enough to believe it.”
Having no idea what to say to that, Dale continued to keep quiet.
“You’ll be fine,” said Vandergild briskly. Standing up, he crossed to a safe embedded into the wall. He returned to his desk a moment later with a cerulean disc about two inches in diameter on a metal chain. He tossed this necklace to Dale. “Keep this on you at all times. Identifies you as a Platform worker.”
Dale turned the cerulean disc over in his fingers. It was smooth metal—though he had no idea what kind of metal, or how they had made it that shade of blue—and a number had been engraved on the back. 29380. He rubbed his finger over it. “What does the number stand for, sir?”
“That’s your employee identification number. Henceforth, you’ll be using it for pretty much everything in Rift City.” Vandergild reached into a drawer for a piece of paper and scrawled a short note. This he sealed with a blob of wax before handing it to Dale. “There’s a Rail station to the south of the Mining District’s main entrance. “It will take you to the Platform. Give that to Elias Reffet,” Vandergild nodded to the letter, “and he’ll put you to work. I would suggest you return to your lodgings for your belongings first—Platform shifts run for nine days at a time. You’ll get five off after that, if your work is satisfactory, and a paycheck before your furlough begins.”
Dale blinked. I’ll be staying on the Platform? Aloud, he said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” said Vandergild cryptically and dropped his gaze to the papers littering his desk.
Recognizing the dismissal for what it was, Dale rose from his seat and let himself out of the office. After hanging the chain around his neck and tucking the metal disc into his shirt, he headed back through the corridor to the main entrance, but he was too lost in thought to pay much attention to the noisy bustle of machinery in the Pit.
Vandergild’s reaction to the letter unsettled him. What is so special—or dangerous, a corner of his mind pointed out, —about the Platform, other than it’s near water?
Only one way to find out.
“Leaving already?” asked Lowell, back in his chair guarding the main entrance. He looked amused.
Dale sent him a tight smile and waved his letter. “I’m going to the Platform.”
The blood drained from Lowell’s face so quickly he almost looked like he was about to faint. “The Platform?” he gasped. “Vandergild’s sending you there?”
“No, Mr. Sivak is sending me there,” Dale corrected him.
Lowell manfully took control of his expression, but he was still pale. “Well, best of luck to you, lad. You’ll need it.”
Nonplussed, Dale stepped out into the cloudy light of day, determined to find the Platform, start his new job, and get some answers. He headed back down the cobblestoned road, past the Main Office, and walked up the ramp that would take him back to the Rail Station. Withers’ words came to mind and he wondered if he would be required to walk back to West Lowersedge, but the man operating the control box let him board a Rail car without any trouble.
Mrs. Yunker did not seem the least bit surprised to learn he had been stationed at the Platform. “I’ll keep your room reserved for you if ye pay for it,” she said frankly.
Dale did not even have to think about it. “Done.”
He gathered up his belongings in the new—albeit used and more than a little worn— seabag he had bought and traveled back to the Mining District. This time, he left the main entrance and set off south down the slope. A moment’s walk led him past a little copse of scruffy trees sweeping out from the jungle to a lone Rail station, which, as far as he could tell, was not connected to the main Rail at all. Not only that, but it appeared to run on a ground track straight into the jungle instead of up in the air. That’s interesting.
A slight, frail-looking teenage boy dressed in cerulean livery cut in a fashion that reminded Dale of Navy uniforms, sat in the control box. His crooked nose was buried in a thick book, but he quickly shoved the book out of sight when he heard Dale’s footsteps. Sharp gray eyes looked up at Dale from beneath a mop of black hair, assessing him, and then the boy cocked an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
Dale tipped his head toward the empty Rail car sitting on the track. “I’ve just been assigned to the Platform.”
The boy extended a thin hand. “Token?”
Dale blinked. Token? “You mean this?” He pulled the cerulean disc out of his shirt. The boy nodded and Dale began to take the necklace off.
“Never give it to anyone,” said the boy sharply. “Didn’t anybody tell you that?” His thin mouth twisted into a scowl.
“Ah…” The back of Dale’s neck grew hot. Vandergild had left that part out. “That’d be a no.”
“Somebody’s slipping.” The boy shook his head, apparently disgusted at the lack of proper preparation afforded newcomers and drilled Dale with a hard look that belied his apparent frailty. “All anybody needs to do is see your token. Never just hand it over.”
Dale nodded once, committing that information to memory. “You need to see my Rail pass too?”
“Not for this. Company Rail.” The boy waved him toward the empty Rail car.
As soon as he climbed inside, Dale felt the Rail car begin to slide forward. Seconds later, a harder surge of acceleration pushed him back into the brown seat. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. This moves a good deal faster than the regular Rail line.
The rest of the Mining District fell away as the Rail car zipped into the tree line. The jungle view outside his window took on an even more distorted cast, and Dale realized the rest of this Rail line was inside a glitterglass tube. His mouth fell open; he pressed a hand against his window as he tried for a better glimpse of the glitterglass walls flashing past. Why would they do that? To protect the Rail line from falling trees?
Within moments, he had his answer. His Rail car slowed and eased into another station behind several other Rail cars. It barely came to a full stop before he opened the door, relishing the smell of salt air that hit him in the face, climbed out—
—and promptly froze at the sight before him.
Gaping, Dale found himself unable to decide where to look first—the station around him, which seemed to have been built on the beach and fully encased in glitterglass…or the strange tower rising out of the stormy ocean in the distance.
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 $6.99 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