"Do you suppose you could...?" Aludel asked Hyacinth's Abomination of Science. She did so hate to enter the portal; even if she didn't die instantly, it was near impossible to get the smell out of her feathers.
The Abomination nodded, lumbered through the portal and retrieved their mistress' corpse.
"Good, now if you could just lay her on the floor here and take a step back-- Thank you."
The portable revivifier Aludel carried with her at all times was the standard model: it folded out into two prongs like an deer's antlers. The florescent blue goop it was filled with crackled with enough aetheric energy for two attempts. Aludel placed the prongs on either side of the dead woman's heart and triggered the first charge. A jolt of aetheric energy crackled over her chest.
Nothing happened.
Aludel, starting to suspect that her little prank was in poor taste, tried one final time. This time, Hyacinth jerked up into a seated position.
"Ow! Ugh, ow!"
"Do you whine every time you're revivified?" Aludel asked.
"Hey! You said the portal was safe."
"It's practically harmless."
"I died!"
"Come now. You can't tell me you graduated from the Royal University without dying half a dozen times."
Hyacinth frowned down at the scorch marks on her bodice.
"Seriously? Not even once? What about Poisons 201? You have to create a toxic gas that kills you."
Hyacinth's face went blotchy. "My gas was toxic. It was! ... but it only killed bothersome insects. Professor Myerscough did say its stench was a deadly weapon, though."
"So you passed that one on a technicality." Aludel sniffed. "I thought Professor Barnaby sent her ravening monster to kill everyone your class."
"No, I faced the monster. I just discovered that it enjoyed tea cakes and belly rubs more than ravening. Professor Barnaby was quite upset."
"No wonder she never sent it after my class. Fine, but there's no way to graduate without passing Drama 301: Maniacal Laughter. The final is literally laughing in the face of death."
"Which I did, except that Professor Hanofer used Professor Barnaby's ravening monster as death. He didn't want to have to redo the test for the entire class, so he gave everyone a C."
"He graded on a curve? No fair! I had to get revivified and my left leg reattached after my final."
Hyacinth peered at the portal. "Has anyone tried to create a portal to a dimension that doesn't have toxic air?"
"Why?" Aludel asked, hooking the portable revivifier back onto her belt.
"I only thought that it might be safer or more efficient than pumping toxic air through the alchemical filters."
"Safe and efficient? What kind of mad scientist are you?"
"I mean--"
"What, precisely, is your doctorate in?"
"I never said I had a doctorate; you just assumed that."
Aludel crossed her arms, fanning out her flight feathers. "Did you pass your practicals?"
Hyacinth blushed. She had, in fact, passed every one, a shameful black mark on her academic record. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Lady Aludel, what is your rank?"
Hyacinth staggered to her feet, clearly suffering pins and needles from her near-life experience. "I said, I don't want to talk about it." She made a limping exit with her Abomination's help and slammed the door behind her.
Aludel's companion squawked.
"Fine," Aludel said, "maybe I was a bit harsh on her. Third class--can you imagine the humiliation?"
Aludel caught up with the other woman in the corridor outside the engine room. "Lady Hyacinth, wait, at least let me show you to the dining room for tea."
Hyacinth let go of her Abomination's arm and whirled around. "I'll make my own way, thank you kindly." She stepped backwards and fell down an open hatch to the lower levels.
~~~
"Ouch!" Hyacinth said, expecting pain, but her landing was oddly cushioned.
"Oof," said the person underneath her.
"Lady Hyacinth?" Captain Chilton said, "What are you doing down here? And why are you crushing my pilot?"
Bom-bom was called in to untangle various limbs, and then the captain reintroduced the two women. "Lady Hyacinth, this is my pilot, Edda Langston."
"Sorry about falling on you like that. My Abomination can be dreadfully clumsy."
"Don't worry about that," she said, rubbing her back with a grimace. "I'm just glad you didn't fall far."
"The ceiling is quite low," Hyacinth said. Captain Chilton had his hat tucked under his arm so it wasn't crushed against the ceiling. Bom-bom had their head tucked.
"This level is just crew quarters and work areas, so there's no need for the luxuries like being able to stand up straight," Edda said. "As long as you're here, would you like to join us for the inspection?"
Captain Chilton looked like he was sucking on a lemon for some reason. "Yes, please do. Here we have the mess hall and barracks for the common sailors."
"Oh my," Hyacinth noted. "They look quite cosy."
"Yes, there are two men assigned to each bunk each shift for a total of eight men per bunk. It's marvelously efficient."
"Athletic, too. Look, those two men are wrestling."
Captain Chilton grabbed her arm and pulled her along. "Ahem. Many of the sailors on this submersible, ah, follow the Greek ways."
"I see," Hyacinth said. She had heard that men in Ancient Greece used to wrestle naked.
"Up here are the weapons stations," Edda said.
"Brilliant!" Hyacinth reached for the complicated clockwork torpedoes, but Bom-bom held her back with a firm shake of their head. "They're so decorative!"
"Not just decorative," Captain Chilton said. "We'll be glad to have them if worst comes to worst."
"You mean if we sink? To blast our way to the surface?"
"No, I mean if we encounter it."
Hyacinth blinked. She looked at her Abomination, but they seemed equally puzzled if the slightly raised eyebrow was any indication. "What?"
"He means the Nautilus, my lady," Edda said.
"We do not say that name."
"Sorry, Captain."
"What name?" Hyacinth wanted to know. "And why are you afraid of a nautilus shell? I think--"
"We do not say that name!" Captain Chilton said. "No one warned you of it? No, of course not--you're a mad scientist. You're drawn to your own destruction. My lady, the Nautilus is the most fearsome submarine ever built. They say it is four hundred feet long and powered not by steam or even aetheric energy but by blue lighting caged in its heart. They say its clockwork tentacles can snatch unwary ships like the giant squid of the deep, and its pincer claws can slice any submarine in half. They say it is black as midnight, and no one has ever seen it."
"If no one has ever seen it, then how do they know it's black? Black is quite dull. What about a lovely shade of--"
"She is captained by the dastardly Nemo, an Indian pirate. They say his turban is red from the blood of every Englishman, Englishwoman, Englishchild and EnglishAbomination he has slain, and he--"
"But Abominations don't bleed red. It's more of a light green."
Captain Chilton gave Hyacinth a look.
"Sorry, sorry, I was just trying to help. Please continue your little speech."
"I've forgotten what I was saying. Langston! You finish the inspection; I'm going above."
As his footsteps retreated up a ladder, Hyacinth said, "I didn't mean to offend him."
"Don't worry about it," Edda said. "You had no way of knowing that he's obsessed with ghost stories."
"I don't believe in ghosts."
"Neither do I. Besides, we're going nowhere near the Indian Ocean. Just a quick stop by South America and we'll be back to Merry Old before you know it."
Hyacinth's stomach rumbled audibly.
Edda grinned. "It is almost tea time. I'll show you to the dining room." She flowed up the ladder like a cat; Hyacinth followed like one of those big fluffy cats that hates to climb things.
~~~
Aludel observed afternoon tea with disappointment. It was a pretty pitiful spread, consisting only of cucumber sandwiches, petit-fours, shortcake, buttered bread, scones, clotted cream, steak and kidney pie, quiche, crackers, cheese, roast beef finger sandwiches, madeleines, potato soup, smoked salmon, seasoned nuts, and assorted sponge cakes. Evidently, Hyacinth was also unimpressed.
"I'm still famished," she said.
The wide-eyed pilot who had just watched Hyacinth plow through five full plates said, "What a tremendous appetite you have, my lady."
"You're too kind," Hyacinth said and helped herself to the quiche on the pilot's plate.
"It's the revivification," Aludel chimed in. "Last time I was brought back from the dead, I ate an entire horse." Actually it was a donkey, but the principle was the same.
"Lady Aludel, I didn't see you there," Hyacinth said. She turned her back to the other woman to ensure she wouldn't in the future.
"Hyacinth, I feel we got off on the wrong foot. It'll be weeks getting to South America, and I don't want us to be frosty to each other the whole time. You're the only lady of quality close to my age."
"You're sorry about earlier?"
"I am. Let me make it up to you. Since your hunger could be seen as a result of my little prank, I'll take you by the kitchen. The chef is such a hoot!"
Hyacinth squinted at Aludel.
"It would be childish to hold a grudge."
"Fine. But you have to ask the chef for my food."
"All right. Follow me, the kitchen is right across this corridor—duck!"
"Actually, it's a chick-- oof!"
While Hyacinth was being pedantic, her Abomination tackled her to the floor. The raw chicken sailed over their heads and smacked the captain, who had been sitting down with a nice cup of tea, in the face. It slowly slid to the floor, leaving a thick trail of slime behind. Captain Chilton leapt to his feet.
"Hermeticums! I told you to--"
"Get out," the chef screamed, his French accent adding gravitas to the hysterical tone. "And keep your creatures out of my kitchen."
An older man and woman stumbled out of the galley, clothing torn and hair mussed, clinging to each other. "The nerve of that man," the woman said. "Calling my beautiful automaton a creature."
"Not so beautiful since my homunculus got its hands on it," the man said.
"I'd say the same about your creation, but I think it looks better without a left arm."
Aludel leaned close to Hyacinth and said, "This is the couple I was talking about: Lady Galena and Mister Mortis. They're simply scandalous!"
With the crash of china breaking, two more figures stumbled out of the galley, hands around each others' throats. The gleaming brass automaton was graceful and delicate in limb, but it wore thick metal plating like armor. The chest plate was bent back and half the faceplate was missing, exposing its intricate clockwork gears. The remaining half of its face was engraved in a cartoonishly angry expression.
Its opponent was roughly humanoid and translucent. The homunculus' facial features were rubbery and half-melted, like a clone taken out of its tank too early. Aludel wondered how it could stand, as she could see no skeleton. One of its arms was gone; clear slime leaked from the injury. Its remaining hand scrabbled on the counter and came up holding a carving knife.
"Destroy!" Galena shouted.
"Bleed!" Mortis yelled.
"Which one is the mechanist?" Hyacinth asked, her voice somehow carrying over the din.
Galena glared. "I am the mechanist. The finest mechanist beneath the seven seas."
"I am the best biologist," Mortis said, "and a better scientist than her, as I will prove when my creation destroys hers."
The captain scowled. "I have ordered the two of you time and again to keep your squabbling out of the common areas."
"Just the argument?" Galena asked.
"The argument and the make-up. Especially the make-up," he said with a shudder.
There was a grinding noise, and one of the automaton's legs froze up.
"Hah!" Mortis said, "The viscous internal fluids I designed have completely gummed up your clockwork. Take that!"
"Automaton!" Galena said, "Engage the disembowler!"
With a whirr, the clockwork man's left hand retracted and a circular saw folded out to take its place. The homunculus opened its proto-mouth in horror, broke and ran towards the stern, pursued by the limping automaton. Their creators followed, cheering them on.
"Ruined!" the chef said. "Dinner is utterly ruined."
Captain Chilton murmured a prayer for patience and took a swig from the flask he had started carrying with him at all times. "Chef Fournier? Are you well?"
"Well? You're asking me if I'm well?"
"Yes."
"After what those creatures did to my kitchen?"
"Yes."
"They broke a saucer in our only tea service for thirty! Do not come crying to me when you want to serve high tea for the Ambassador of Italy and his retinue and we have an incomplete set."
"Breathe, cook."
"Just look at what they did to dinner! The chickens, snails and frogs' legs are all covered with homunculus slime. How can I possibly serve this to the crew?"
"With a squeeze of lemon, I think," Hyacinth said, using a finger to scrape some more fluid off the counter for a second taste. "And a dash of cardamom."
Captain Chilton gaped. "You're eating that?"
Aludel said, "The lady is quite famished. A side-effect of emergency revivification, you understand."
"It's slime!"
"It's a lovely blend," Hyacinth said. "The ether adds zest. You should really try a bit before judging."
Captain Chilton watched her lick more of the goo off her fingers and shuddered. The cook, a man of far greater gastronomical curiosity, swiped a bit with his finger and hummed in surprise.
"It is quite good," he said. "Too sweet for tandoori chicken, perhaps, but you are correct, mademoiselle. A little squeeze of lemon, a little pinch of cardamom, perhaps some allspice—"
"Just a dash. You wouldn't want to overwhelm the flavor of the growth substrate."
"Naturally not. My thanks, mademoiselle, you have saved dinner. We shall dine on curried frogs legs and snails au jus de homunculus in your honor. You are a chef yourself?"
Hyacinth's eyes widened. "I am a lady, monsieur. I do not cook. I eat."
"Even better! These sailors, they have no sense of the gourmet. Every time, they want something they have heard of before!"
Hyacinth nodded in sympathy. "I confess, I have never heard of curries used in French cuisine. I am also impressed by the size of your oven." The heavy stone structure filled half the galley.
"I am French, but I have long been fascinated by Indian food. That is why I insisted on this authentic Tandoor oven. It is my greatest wish to someday learn the style first-hand in exotic India, but alas, it may never come to be. With my limited ingredients and no true training, I can only approximate, and the crew has no appetite for the unusual. But for you, mademoiselle! For you I will make my famous paneer and tamarind sponge cakes."
"Oh my! I have never heard of such a thing, and yet I want nothing more than to eat it right now," Hyacinth said.
Holding up her side of the bargain, Aludel said, "Is there by any chance a repast available for her right now? The selection at tea was pitiful."
"Ah oui! That is because this captain he refuses to let me share my masterpieces."
Captain Chilton said, "You gave the entire crew food poisoning."
"They do not have stomachs of true gastronomists, but I think you do, mademoiselle. And so..." Chef Fournier pulled a tray from the icebox. It was so loaded with unidentifiable foodstuffs that it sagged in the middle.
"That's more like it." Hyacinth seated herself at the slimed counter, grabbed a spoon and dug in.