The Whistle of the Blind Gaskets

Four frames of armored oak and two bales of oakum that smelled of wet dog and old pitch. That was the entirety of Mara Ibarra's living space in the belly of the imperial galleon.

Not a centimeter more.

She shifted slowly, searching for a gap between two lumpy sacks because the tip of a bronze bolt was biting into her hip through the canvas of her coveralls. In the greenish gloom of the double bottom, the world boiled down to three very concrete things: the warm vapor of her own breath against the scratched lenses of her mechanic's goggles, the untied lace of her right boot—which threatened to send her tumbling into the bilge at the first jolt—and a sharp, sickly whistle that had no business being there.

"Three thousandths of play," she muttered against the collar of her jacket, without letting go of the tool clutched against her thighs.

[Inventory: 'Chata' wrench, 24-gauge. Mild steel with a handle wrapped in frayed leather. Persistent stains of rapeseed oil. Utility: tightening rebellious nuts or cracking the skull of anyone asking too many questions.]

The whistle sounded again, finer now, almost the whimper of an old kettle. It came from the port bulkhead, right where the condensation pipes crossed the keel toward the lift rocker arms. A blind lead gasket was giving way even before they cast off the stone moorings at the San Telmo dock. Lead was cheap, soft, and malleable; the imperial bureaucracy loved it because it cut costs in the capital's offices, but four hundred cubits above the abyss of clouds, lead melted like rancid lard.

If the gasket blew mid-launch, the stabilizers would spit dead steam and the mass of wood and sheet metal would heel over like a leaden bale straight into the void of the Foam.

Up above, through the iron grating separating the bilge from the boiler deck, trimmed leather-soled boots thudded. The pace was dry, martial, without the slightest consideration for the elasticity of the planks.

"I asked for immediate maneuvering pressure, boatswain, not a list of meteorological excuses!" bellowed a voice that came down the speaking tube with the clarity of a thrown stone. Commander Sabino Prado. There was no need to see his gold epaulets to picture him standing straight beside the helm, with his jaw shaved to the millimeter and his kidskin gloves immaculate. "The Third Flotilla sortied twenty minutes ago. If we lag behind in the fog stratum, I assure you it won't be my service record that ends up in the casualty file."

"The purge isn't finished, Commander," replied another voice, much more gravelly, drowned out by a fit of dry coughing. "The rapeseed vapor is still coming dirty from the preheater. If we force draft the turbines before crossing the two-hundred mark..."

"Two hundred and eighty bars of pressure before the six o'clock bell! Did you hear me? Follow the order."

The metallic echo of a hatch slamming shut cut off the argument.

Silence.

Except for the whistle. Fssss-tic. Fssss-tic.

Mara slipped her left hand into the side pocket of her backpack, the one with the zipper jammed by a brass safety pin, and groped for something solid. Her fingers found an oatmeal biscuit broken into four pieces. She pulled out one covered in gray lint, blew on it without much enthusiasm to clean it, and shoved it between her teeth. It tasted like raw flour and iron.

She chewed slowly, her back pressed against the outer hull. The wood trembled. Not with the rhythmic, noble vibration of a well-centered engine, but with that erratic rattle that warns a gear is chewing shavings. Outside, the wind of the middle strata pushed against the sides of the vessel, bringing through the joints that unmistakable smell of the Foam swirling beneath the keel: a dense, pungent stench, like extinguished sulfur and burnt lye that left a cold roughness on the palate.

If Prado forced the boilers with the gasket in that condition—

A dull snap interrupted her.

It wasn't above. It was barely three meters from her hiding place, right behind the auxiliary bilge pump. The lead of the flange had just split. A thread of white steam, as fine and straight as a sewing needle, began to hiss against the boards with a hysterical screech.

"Damn my hide and the blacksmith who cast this junk," growled a voice from the shadows.

Mara held her breath, shrinking so tightly that the buckle of her goggles dug in behind her ear. Down the central corridor of the bilge marched heavy boots, deformed by bunions, dragging their heels with a weary cadence.

A light appeared. A white flame, alive and reeking of acetylene, sprouting from the nozzle of a carbide lamp whose brass reflector had more dents than a mess hall kettle. The protective glass was crossed from side to side by a crack repaired with fine wire.

The man holding the lamp wore a drill jacket soaked in black grease spots and carried a striking wrench on his shoulder like a rifle. He was broad, sallow, with mustaches yellowed by chewing tobacco and his brow furrowed in a perpetual expression of disgust with the laws of thermodynamics.

Onofre Cuesta.

The old machinist stopped in front of the broken flange, snorted, and raised the lamp.

The yellowish light swept the bilge, slid across the wooden ribs, illuminated the bales of oakum, and drove straight into Mara's face.

She didn't blink. She held the steel wrench pressed against her chest with white knuckles and her heart hammering against her ribs at two hundred beats per minute.

Onofre didn't yell. He didn't even open his eyes wider than necessary. He stood staring at her for five full seconds, like someone looking at a new damp stain on their cabin ceiling: with a mixture of bureaucratic annoyance and cosmic resignation. The old man's gaze traveled slowly from the girl's tousled locks down to the tool she held in her hands, gleaming with fresh grease.

"That chata doesn't belong to the onboard inventory," Onofre said. His voice sounded like gravel crushed in a mill. "The handle's way too clean."

"It's forged steel from the low-tide workshops," Mara managed to articulate, without moving an inch. "It takes forty kilos of torque without rounding the edges."

"Oh, yeah?" Onofre scratched the corner of his lip with a dirty thumb fingernail. "Well, aren't you a joy, stowaway."

"I'm not—"

"I don't give a damn what you are," cut off the old man with a sharp jerk of his elbow. "A galleon doesn't fly by decree or by flag, lass; it flies because four wretched souls tighten the nuts in time."

Without warning, the machinist took two strides, stretched out his arm, and jammed the glowing handle of the carbide lamp squarely against her chest, forcing her to let out a gasp when the warm metal struck her sternum.

"Hold this and don't burn your fingers," Onofre barked as he crouched down with a painful cracking of his knees. "We're losing the secondary seal pressure and the port turbine's going to stall before we clear the dock. If that piece-of-crap wrench of yours is worth what you say, get down there and wedge the locknut while I jam the jack. Move, before we drop before we climb!"