Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

paced the deck , frustration and worry dogging every step. On the street below, Lucia directed three aviators carrying a blanket-wrapped form onto the cargo lift. He couldn’t help his aunt. He couldn’t help Annika. He could only watch her go from house to house, her expression when she emerged telling him that she’d found more death inside.
    He stopped pacing, clenched his hands on the gunwale when Annika came out of the next cottage. Something had changed. Instead of the sorrow that had seemed to weigh on her shoulders and the unsettled fear that kept her gaze darting around, as if she expected a threat to jump out from beneath the snow, now her posture was stiff, her expression devastated. The second mate walked ahead, a faint scowl darkening her face.
    An argument?
    Look up, Annika. He wanted to see her face better, to offer whatever support he could. Her eyes remained downcast. She disappeared into the next cottage.
    Christ.
    The cargo lift clanked into place. The other men gathered at the gangway, their heads bare, their faces reflecting his own frustration. David joined them, removing his hat as the aviators carried the dead woman past. Lucia followed, her mouth set and eyes dark with worry. She caught his gaze, paused.
    “What happened to them?”
    “We don’t know.” She tugged at the fingers of her gloves, gestured for him to walk with her. “Most of them were sleeping—even the animals. I couldn’t find a mark on them. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
    “Not outside a cave.”
    Lucia’s gaze sharpened. “You refer to the miner’s death?”
    “Yes.” Concentrations of toxic gas suffocated the men. Whenthe bodies were found, the miners appeared as if they’d fallen asleep.
    “At least one woman was out in the open. Do you know of anything else that is similar?”
    An entire town dead? “I’ve heard of one village smothered when gas erupted from a volcanic lake. But the people were burned, had lesions on their skin.” He looked out at the cliffs, the small cone on the west side of Heimaey, the nearby islands. “This is an active region. This island might be, too. Perhaps a chamber of gas lay below the water, and a tremor broke it open.” David had to admit he was grasping. “I don’t know.”
    And he wasn’t the best man to ask. He waved Dooley and Goltzius over, told them what Lucia had found.
    She looked to Goltzius. “Could it be a plant? Something they’ve eaten?”
    “Not at this scale. And the animals were affected, too—so it would have to be something everyone ate, yet there are no visible signs.” The Dutchman shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely.”
    “No, it doesn’t.” Lucia sighed. “Mr. Dooley?”
    “It’s a terrible thing, but we’ve all heard of the weapon that could have killed every bugger in England last year. I’m wondering if these women were infected.”
    David sure as hell hoped not. “And some signal killed them—like from the Horde towers?”
    “I wouldn’t be knowing that. But aside from the miner’s death, it’s the only instance I’ve ever heard of a man dropping dead all at once, without a mark on him.”
    The concern on Lucia’s face deepened. She looked up at David. “I can’t test for infection after they’re dead. Those nanoagents are too small for me to see, even with a microscope. Can you?”
    “No.” Eyes made from mechanical flesh could, but he only had lenses. “But we don’t want to know if they’re infected; we want to know if they aren’t . If even one woman isn’t, she wouldn’t havedied from a signal or a weapon that destroyed the bugs. You could exclude it as a cause, at least.”
    “But, David—I can’t test for no infection, either.”
    “The women searching the cottages can. Tell them to look for any evidence that the women suffered a winter cold.” David hadn’t been sick even once since he’d been infected. If ever badly injured, he might contract a fever as the bugs worked to heal him, but he was immune to the diseases that threatened many other explorers—or aviators. A man blowing his nose aboard an airship was so common as to be unremarkable. “A handkerchief, for instance.”
    Lucia nodded. “I’ll tell them.”
    She started down the companionway. David returned to the ship’s side to look for Annika. Dooley and Goltzius joined him.
    On his left, Goltzius said, “No matter what caused it, the newssheets will spread the sensational story of beautiful, untouchable virgins