Someone had snuck up on them.

The ships were near enough to each other that Cly, Troost, Houjin, and Fang could plainly see three men in the cockpit of the other dirigible. Houjin waved. One of the distant men waved back. The voice came again, and this time its source was obvious: a large electric speaker mounted to the exterior of the hull.

“You’ve entered airspace deemed restricted by the Republic of Texas. I have to ask you to accompany us to a landing dock a short ways east, at Port Sulphur. Do you agree to comply at this time?”

Cly and his crew members looked back and forth between one another.

Houjin, always the first with a query, asked, “Captain?”

Fang shrugged, and Troost did likewise. The engineer said, “We aren’t carrying any contraband. We can play dumb.”

Thoughtfully, Cly said, “We’re from out of town. Nothing bad on board. No reason to put up a fight or make a stink.” Out the windscreen he could see more Texian ships, approaching the other gawkers in the same way. “They haven’t singled us out. They’re just clearing the area. Sure, let’s see what they want. I’m not familiar with Port Sulphur, but maybe they can point us at a good machine works.”

He returned his attention to the Texian ship, waved, and nodded. He added a thumbs-up for good measure and held out one long arm as if to say, After you!

One by one, they buckled back into their seats and waited for the Texian ship to lead. When it did, they followed at a respectful distance—but close enough to make it plain that they meant no trouble, and were abiding by the Republic’s orders.

Houjin said, “I don’t like this, sir.”

“I’m not highly keen on it either, but it might work out. Maybe we’ll learn something. And we’re headed in the right direction, anyway. There’s nothing to worry about, you hear me? We haven’t been up to any mischief, and they aren’t shooting at us. Mostly, I think, they didn’t want us watching what they’re doing in the bay.”

“That’s my guess,” Kirby Troost observed quietly. “And it backs up what my acquaintances and your tapper lady said.”

“How’s that?” asked Houjin.

“Texas took Barataria apart with a goal in mind. They’re looking for something—something they thought the pirates were holding or hiding.”

“Something in the water,” Cly added.

The boy frowned. “Some kind of ship? But you were just saying how hard it is for ships to—”

The captain shook his head. “I know what I said. But I also know what I saw. This has the stink of a military operation all over it.”

It was Troost’s turn to frown. “Isn’t everything Texas does in New Orleans a military operation?”

“Mostly they’re here to keep the civil order. Police work, and the like. They occupy, they don’t govern—that’s still left to the Confederacy. And this wasn’t police work. This was army work. I wonder how much we can get them to tell us about it.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were setting down at a large industrial pipe dock on a promontory near a wide canal, at the edge of the marshy swamplands, like almost everything else between the city and the Gulf. Being careful to preserve every appearance of innocence, the captain disembarked and used the lobster-claw anchor to latch the Naamah Darling into the nearest slot.

As he did so, he was approached by a Texian who might’ve been tall by anyone else’s standard, but was merely neck height to Andan Cly. The beefy blond was wearing the local version of the brown uniform—pants and boots as usual, but jacketless and with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up past his elbows and unbuttoned halfway to his waist. It was the captain’s opinion that telling any Texians anywhere to wear any uniform was an act of futility, but it wasn’t his army and he didn’t say anything except, “Hello, there,” when the man stuck out his hand for a shake.

Handshakes accomplished, the Texian said, “Hello back at you,” with a heavy Republican accent. “And I want to thank you for your cooperation. Not everyone has been so quick to leave when asked. I’m Wade Bullick, captain of the Yellow Rose,” he said, waving a hand at the ship that had escorted the Naamah Darling out of Barataria’s airspace.

“Andan Cly, captain of the Naamah Darling.”

“Pleasure to meet you, and I do beg your pardon about all this. We had ourselves an incident at the pirate bay, and right now we’re in the middle of getting it all cleaned up. You know how it goes.”

“I suppose I do.”

“And I don’t suppose you had any business there yourself?” Bullick asked casually.

“None whatsoever, I assure you. We saw the smoke, is all. And I won’t lie—we heard rumors, on our way east.”

“On your way coming east? Most folks come here by flying west. Where do you all hail from?”

“The Washington Territory,” Cly told him. He also took this opportunity to provide his ship’s licensing papers, which he’d stuffed into his vest before leaving the ship. He knew they’d be asked after, and it was always better to offer such things when one was innocent of any wrongdoing. “We’re registered out of Tacoma.”

Wade Bullick examined the papers, and Cly noted that the man either read very quickly or made only a show of reading—and he couldn’t tell which. “Everything does look to be in order here. Might I ask why you’ve come to the good land of Louisiana, Captain Cly?”

“Supply run, mostly. We serve the little frontier towns up and down the Pacific Coast, and I homestead in a tiny port town called Seattle,” he exaggerated only slightly. He preferred to think of it as an optimistic prediction. “Also, this bird was built to move cargo I don’t care to carry, so I was hoping to find one of your Texian machine shops and get her all fitted up for regular trade and supplies. You’re welcome to climb inside and take a look.”

“You got crew with you?”

“Three men—my first mate, but he’s a mute Chinaman and can’t tell you about it; an engineer; and a young fellow who’s apprenticing to ride aboard more permanent-like. We don’t have cargo right this moment, nothing but our own possessions. We flew down empty, with intent to load up before heading home.”

Captain Bullick went to the stairwell and climbed halfway up, poking his head into the interior and looking around. Cly couldn’t see if anyone waved at him, swore at him, or stuck out a tongue, but he trusted that nothing too out-of-the-ordinary took place outside his line of sight. He also trusted that Bullick had noticed the tracks running along the ceiling, and the empty sacks he’d once used to move the blight gas.

“I see what you mean,” the other captain said as he retreated back down to ground level again. “Been moving things to make other things, have you?”

“Once upon a time,” Cly confessed. “But I’m giving it to you straight—that’s not what this is about, and not what we’re here for. And I really am hoping you can make me a recommendation for a shop where I can get some of that unnecessary gear stripped out.”

“All right, then, I’ll take you at your word—since you’ve been so agreeable thus far, and all. And as for Barataria, I don’t blame you for wanting to come take a look. It left a big ol’ hole in the marsh, didn’t it? Not that I expect the fun’s been rooted out for good.”

“Excuse me?”

“Aw, come on. Between you, me, and the entire Gulf coast, everybody knew what was going on out there.”

Cly retrieved his papers and stuck them back in his vest. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could tell me what all the hoopla was about, is there? Gossip was all over the taps, but that’s all we heard. Nothing but gossip.”

“Honest to God, I don’t have much more than that to share. A couple nights ago, the bay went up like firecrackers—and yesterday Colonel Travis McCoy called everybody out to help clean up what was left. I’m not a military man myself, except in the loose sense. I mean, I’ll show up if they offer me Republican money to fly around like I was going to anyhow, that’s for sure. But I’m no fighter, and no Dirigible Corpsman. McCoy told the fellas like me to act with Texas authority and keep the sky cleared. And now you know about as much as I do.”

Cly assumed there was plenty Bullick was leaving out, but pressing for it would only look suspicious. “Well, then, I thank you for clearing that up for me. It’s strange business all around, but I suppose it’s none of mine.”

With another minute or two of chitchat, Cly learned that Travis McCoy had taken over the city’s management following the disappearance of the previous colonel, which Bullick was not prepared to divulge any extra information about—or perhaps Bullick himself wasn’t sure what happened, and he was only parroting the official line. He also said that the nearest machine shop of the caliber Cly required was located in Metairie—and he offered this recommendation without hesitation, including the instructions to, “Tell Baxter Devitt I sent you, and he’ll fix you right up!”

With this, they were free to go so long as they steered clear of the pirate bay. By evening the Naamah Darling was moored at the machine shop in Metairie, where Baxter Devitt had been tickled pink to hear Wade Bullick was sending him customers. Devitt was a small, dark man—almost the descriptive opposite of Bullick—but he possessed a similar savvy cheerfulness that Cly had come to recognize as a general trait of Texians, or at least one common enough to remark on.

Before long, Captain Cly had an estimate for the price—at the high end of reasonable—and time frame—within the week—for all the work he wanted accomplished on the Naamah Darling, and a general tour and inspection of the facilities had convinced him that this was an establishment capable of doing good work, and worthy of being trusted with his most valued possession. With a gentleman’s agreement and another round of handshakes, Cly took his crew out to the street rail station near the great cemetery, and together they waited for the next available car to take them into the city proper.