Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3) Read Online Free Page A

runners, not true submarines, so odds are you’ll spot them overhead if you’re running at any depth at all.”
    “I didn’t know the Founders had submarines,” Sabrina said.
    It first struck Buckle as odd that Sabrina would not know if the Founders had undersea machines, but on further reflection he realized it wouldn’t be surprising if the secretive clan’s elite avoided discussing military secrets with their own children—and Sabrina had been little more than a child when she had left the city.
    “Not submarines, but submersibles,” Felix replied. “They’re not much more than modified ironclads. They can’t stay submerged for long. Their machines don’t hold a candle to the Atlantean submarines as far as elegance and efficiency goes, but there are more of them and they’re big—big old piston-jammers loaded with torpedoes.”
    “That sounds like the Founders to me,” Sabrina said softly. “Big and clumsy.”
    “And deadly,” Kishi added.
    The Dart cleared the harbor mouth where the sea floor tumbled down into murky dark blue depths below with the blue-green surface sparkling above. A silver mass of fish appeared like a tornado, swirling above the windows until, directly overhead, they turned black, their forms silhouetted against the surface light.
    A Dart crewman appeared on the bridge, his boots clanking across the deck grating, shoving his way between Welly and Penny Dreadful. The Dart probably ran with a crew of five or six, as far as Buckle could tell. “You called, Cap’n?” the man asked; the dozens of tools lining his coverall pockets gave him the look of a machinist.
    “Get in the belly pod, Marsh,” Felix said. “Dawn is a perfectly bad time to try to skim bottom to Atlantis. The Guardians will be out, active as rabbits and likely to latch on.”
    “Aye,” Marsh answered. “Dawn is sure as hell a perfectly bad time.” He hurried out.
    “Guardians?” Buckle asked.
    Felix nodded as he eased the helm wheel back and forth in his hands, keeping his submarine close along the contours of the seabed. “Trained octopi and other nasty Martian brutes. The Atlanteans have domesticated the beasties as best they can, trained them to patrol the reaches under the city. The handlers will keep them under control, if the handlers happen to be around. Otherwise the creatures, they’ll get ahold of yer boat and pull it apart. Don’t worry yourself, however—my crew knows how to handle the Guardians.”
    “All systems are good,” Kishi announced.
    “Stay on the bubble,” Felix said.
    “Aye,” Kishi replied.
    “And no sign of that Founders boat,” Felix said. “Hold yer breath. Nowhere to hide in this stretch.”
    “I was always under the impression that the Founders and the Atlanteans were trade partners and tight bedfellows in that sense,” Welly said. “I am surprised by the existence of the blockade.”
    “They’re both strange collections of bastards and there’s no love lost between them,” Felix replied. “But both need what the other has and they’re both greedy. They have always overlooked their differences to make way for trade. It is well known that the Founders clan cannot feed itself, locked up the way they are in that corrupted city surrounded by poison, and the Atlantean fishing fleets are a friend they cannot do without.”
    “So why bite the hand that feeds you?” Welly asked.
    “Why pay for it when you can control it yourself?” Buckle asked Welly.
    Kishi nodded. “It is no secret that the Founders are uncomfortable relying on someone else for a big chunk of their food supply; now they are moving to take control of the fishing fleets.”
    “And then there is the matter of Lombard,” Sabrina added.
    Felix glanced back at Sabrina, taking full measure of her slender form with his eyes. “Aye. Lombard.”
    “Who is Lombard?” Welly asked before Buckle did.
    “Long ago the undersea complex of Atlantis was built by a renegade Founders scientist, a genius