[Chapter 5 continued]
Cara followed Erika down the metal staircase, away from the daylight that came from the skylight above, down into a gloomy darkness which was dimly lit by strange LEDs from below.
“They are grow lights”, Erika said, as Cara was still wondering about the strange colour of them. It was then that she saw ivy growing up the handrail. Slowly creeping towards the daylight above, while at the same time stretching towards the synthetic light below. It gave the plant a strange appearance, like it was desperately trying to escape the depths but with a strange force trying to keep it closer to the darkness below. Cara was so distracted by the strange plant that she had the feeling like she had been walking down this stairs for an eternity.
“How deep is this machine of yours?”, Cara asked feeling that by now they had to be below the ship, below the water in some unfathomable depth below the earth.
“So very deep. If in front of us is Purgatory below us is just the cold damp world of the dead gods”, Erika said.
Cara shivered, regretting not having taken a scarf and stayed above with the others. They had tried to warn her.
When Erika saw Cara’s reaction she laughed. “Don’t worry Cara, we are just below the waterline. Here are the batteries, the labs, the special stores and of course”, she paused dramatically; they had arrived at the bottom of the stairs, there was just one reinforced steel bulkhead door, almost overgrown by the crawling ivy cast in a baleful green light. She opened the door with a flourish, letting Cara see what was behind it, “there are the dead gods sleeping.” Behind the door, slightly deeper than the floor were many different engines and machines Cara didn’t recognise, bathed in a strangely warm, amber light. The smell was half that of a chippy and the other half was that strange slightly sharp odour, that she could not identify. Here that smell was crisp and harsh. It smelled tempting, but like something that, when you got too close to it, would hurt you if you weren’t careful. Cara did not move forward.
“Come on”, Erika said, “the old monsters won’t bite you. They are tamed and very well behaved. Well mostly, block one is a spoilt little child sometimes. Aren’t you, Alekto Sinister?”, she said moving to the first engine on the left which she gently patted like one would a puppy.
“What is all this?”, Cara asked. Upstairs Natalie and Wolfram shivered. Erika in front of Cara grinned broadly. “I’m so glad you asked”, she said, almost giddy with halfheartedly hidden enthusiasm.
“These are the last V8s. Four Diesel and two petrol, with two-stage variable turbo chargers, I call them my little furies, the port furies and the starboard furies.
And further back is Juno, our gas turbine.” Erika’s pride was now outshining everything else in the room.
“Diesel? Petrol!?”, Cara said, her voice croaked. “These are the forbidden fuels! If the church finds out you have them…”, Cara was at a loss for words.
“The dead gods do not drink of the forbidden blood anymore. We feed them only the freshest elixirs.”
“I don’t understand anything you are saying”, Cara said, slowly walking back over the threshold.
Erika was beaming even more than before. “Then let me explain. It takes weeks sometimes months to produce enough of the Essence on which these ancient engines run. The petrol engines run on what I distil from the liquid trees.”
“Liquid trees?”, Cara said, imagining horrible melted masses of bark and leaf matter.
“Yes. The navigation lights”, Erika said. “Both are tubes filled with nutrient broth in which algae grow. There is a light source in the centre, the filtered ships exhaust goes through them, feeding the algae with CO2. They also give the lights their colour. Red ones on the port side and blue-green ones on the starboard side. From the algae, once they die, I can produce the fuel for the petrol engines. What remains goes unto the pile that creates the gas for the Juno. And we recycle our oils and fat and actually get paid for taking old cooking oils on board”, Erika laughed. “We get paid for it”, she shook her head. “Anyway, that goes into the Diesel engines.”
“Oh”, Cara said, slowly stepping back into the engine room, where the gods were sleeping. “Can I touch them?”, she asked Erika.
“Now, yes, but later when they are running, no. So take advantage of the situation, because soon it will be too late.”
Cara slowly extended her hand, first poking one of the engines softly. When that didn’t strike her down immediately, she used the palm of her hand to feel the metal surface of it. It was hard to imagine that these compact metal things were what caused the Dies Irae, which almost led to the apocalypse. Cara had never been much of a religious person, she was to easily distracted. She was often confused by the parts of the doctrine that she could not fit together in a way that made sense to her, however she had always loved the stories during mass. And while they were intended as a dire warning, she always enjoyed the sermons about the almost apocalypse the most.
These were the engines that had feasted on the blood of the Adversary…
“Are you sure we are safe with these?”, she asked her fear tinged with a growing splash of excitement.
“As safe as we can get. I keep improving everything around the ship, to make it as efficient as possible”, Erika was now walking around the large engine room starting to work on various levers, connectors, running checks and activating devices. To Cara it all looked very exiting. Lights were coming on, started blinking and little electric engines came to life, pumping strange fluids through all matters of hoses and tubes.
“The Ruhig Blut, is not the largest freighter there is. We can transport far less than any other commercial vessel of this size, but there is no ship that can transport as large a variety of things as this ship. Passengers, liquid gas, coal, machines, life-stock, letters, plants, you name it we can transport it. With the help of the dead gods here, we can reach places with ease that other don’t dare even get close too. We also respect all decent people, we deal with moneterians, traders and gifters with equal ease. Some people say we waste resources. I say we invest in diversity and more importantly we invest in fun.”
“Fun?”, Cara said looking around. The tomb of the old gods felt as impressive as the catacombs of Monasteria, but fun…
Erika’s smile retreated into the shadows established by her eyebrows, lingering in it waiting for its moment. “You will see”, she walked back to a slightly raised platform where a strange looking seat was bolted in front of an array of control panels. She grabbed a pair of ear protectors and threw them towards Cara. She noticed to late and the ear protectors hit her as her hands closed around empty air, but she could pull a leg up before the protectors clattered to the ground, her arms darting down catching them in the last second. She looked up with burning ears, but Erika had turned around to get hold of an old telephone speaker.
“Put them on”, Erika said. “You’ll need them soon.”
Erika grabbed hold of crank near the speakers cradle and turned it a couple of times vigorously. After a moment she said. “Si, caro mio, we are ready. How does it look up there? Perfect. We’ll get ready.”
She hung up. Turning back to Cara, her smile pouncing back into the limelight and turning into a triumphant grin, she said:
“It is not dead what can eternal lie,
for a machine is immortal.”
She turned back around to Cara still wondering about the strange words. Erika sat down, holding up her left hand counting down with her fingers.
5
Cara put her hearing protectors on.
4
She checked if they fit correctly.
3
She snapped her fingers around her head to test if they were working.
2
Cara nodded to herself steeling herself for what may come.
1
Around her all the engines came back to life all at once, with a throaty roar.
‘That wasn’t so bad.’, Cara thought, while in front of her Erika, her left hand held up again one finger pointing towards the ceiling, now waved her hand forwards, while her right pushed an array of levers forward.
The dead gods around Cara all leapt back to life with a unified deep roar full of fire and fury.
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