Alain studied it for a moment. “How much?”
“Just a little. Like so,” she indicated with spread finger and thumb.
“There is little power available. I can only do this once.”
“That’s all we need. But wait a moment.” The fact that Alain was a Mage remained unknown to the Mechanics Guild so far, and maybe it should stay that way a little longer. Mari faced the other Mechanics. “Turn around. I won’t hurt you if you turn around.” The three Mechanics exchanged frightened glances, then first one and then the other two turned and faced away from her. “Now, Alain.”
“Very well.” Mari saw Alain take on a look of concentration, and a section of the pipe vanished. Thick fuel oil started gushing from one end of the gap, its strong smell immediately obvious.
Mari stood back and kicked hard several times, forcing one end of the pipe at the gap out of alignment. “Okay.”
Alain relaxed and the missing segment returned, though since Mari had kicked the end of the pipe away the restored segment now no longer matched up and the fuel continued to splash out, covering a spreading area of the deck and dripping down into the bilges. “You’re very handy to have around when I need to break something,” she commented. “All right,” Mari called to the three other Mechanics, “we’re are leaving now.” She gestured with the weapon. “Out.”
Mari went last, her head beginning to ache from the fumes of the fuel oil still pouring from the pipe. The lights around them started dimming and one of the Mechanics made an abortive move back. Mari stopped him with a threatening move of her weapon. “No fuel’s going to the boiler, so it’s losing steam pressure fast,” she explained to Alain. “The fires will go out in a very short while. Then the steam pressure will totally fall off and the electricity will fail as well as the propulsion.”
He nodded, then shook his head.
Oh, right. He doesn’t even know what a lever is and I’m explaining a steam plant’s operation to him. “But that’s not enough. We need to start a fire.”
“Fire?” Alain looked doubtful, and she noticed that he seemed to be drawn and tired. “I have done a great deal since coming aboard.”
“I’m sorry. It’s important.”
He sighed. “You always say that, and I always find a way. Where?”
“The liquid. It will burn, but it has a high flashpoint. That means it needs a lot of heat to get it burning.”
“I will do what I can.” The three captive Mechanics were just outside the hatch, unable to see what Alain was doing. Mari stood in the hatch watching them but keeping one worried eye on Alain as well.
Alain held his hand before him, palm up, looking at it. The air above his hand began to glow noticeably as the lights of the ship dimmed more. Alain looked back into the boiler room toward the pool of liquid beneath the broken pipe, and the glowing air above his hand vanished.
Flame fountained out in a frightening blast that drove Alain, Mari and the three other Mechanics away from the open hatch. Mari glared at the three captives. “Get out of here! Run!” They stared at her, then turned and bolted.
Alain stared as well. “Is that wise?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Mari growled. “Leave them in the fire? Walk around holding three Mechanics at gunpoint? Tie them up and maybe let them burn or drown? I will not kill if I don’t absolutely have to!” She paused, remembering something. “Blast. Come on.”
Mari led them back at a run to the place where she and Alain had been imprisoned, their journey complicated when the lighting on the ship went out and only a few replacement lights sprang on to provide dim illumination. “Battery-powered emergency lamps,” Mari explained, looking back and seeing that Alain had his whatever-you-say expression on, meaning he understood nothing but was willing to accept that she did. Amid her fears she felt a surge of real joy at his trust in her, trust that meant all the more since he had plenty of grounds for knowing she wasn’t perfect by any means.
But she also noticed that Alain was visibly struggling to keep up with her, gasping for breath as he followed. Despite her urgency, Mari slowed down some.
Along with the lights, the fans providing air through the ship had now died, leaving an eerie silence in their wake punctuated by growing numbers of alarmed cries from members of the crew and the sound of feet thundering on the metal decks as Mechanics dashed to and fro in hopes of discovering the problem. Mari, seeing Alain faltering more, stepped back to help him keep moving. “They can shut off the fuel and get that fire out, but by the time they do that we should be off this ship,” she explained, trying to cover her growing fear with talking. “The boiler room will be badly damaged. They won’t be able to get steam up again for quite a while.”
Finally reaching the place where they had been confined, Mari stopped at the locked hatch, unfastened the lock, then lifted the handle and yanked the hatch open. The five Mechanics inside stared back. “I won’t leave anyone locked in a room on a ship that might sink,” Mari announced. “But if any of you come after me I’ll blow your heads off. Understood?” Without waiting for a reply she grabbed Alain again and ran for the closest ladder at the best pace which Alain could manage.
Reaching the next level up, Mari hesitated, looking in each possible direction, then ran up another ladder, thinking that would take her to the main deck level. Alain leaned on her, struggling up the steep steps, as the tumult grew around them. The ship’s crew dashed around and past them, staggering as the ship rolled drunkenly in the seas, its last traces of headway lost without the propulsion system working anymore.
“We are still improvising?” Alain asked.
“That’s the plan, yes,” Mari assured him. “We’re going to improvise our way off of this ship.” She saw an open hatch with the darkness of night visible through it and dodged that way.
Out on deck there were Mechanics rushing around in singles and small groups. In their stolen jackets and the darkness, Mari and Alain blended in without notice. “Follow me.” There were life rafts fastened nearby, but they were small and lacked sails. Drifting helplessly on a small platform wouldn’t save them. With Alain still leaning on her, Mari ran toward the stern, where she could see lifeboat davits rising from the deck.
Skidding to a halt at the first boat, she bent to read the instructions, blessing the Mechanics Guild’s obsession with spelling out written procedures. “Just as I thought I remembered. It’s a gravity release system.”
“A what?”
“It doesn’t need any power,” Mari explained. Yanking off her pack, she tossed it in the boat. “Put your pack in there, too.” Then she hurled the weapons they had stolen into the boat as well.
As Alain threw his pack into the lifeboat, Mari pulled out heavy pins that had held the lowering mechanism locked, then threw herself against a big lever. Alain added his own strength and the lever swung over with a dull, metallic thunk.
The davits sagged outward, taking the boat out over the water, and the lines holding the lifeboat close to the davits began unreeling, the boat freefalling to land in the sea with a tremendous splash. Mari yanked off her stolen jacket and dropped it on the deck, gesturing to Alain to do the same.
“Hey, what’s going on?” A Senior Mechanic was staring at them, the same man who had led the group that had captured Mari. “Why are you lowering a lifeboat? I didn’t hear anything about abandoning ship.”
“We’re lightening the ship,” Mari yelled back. “Getting rid of excess weight. Captain’s orders.”