Airship City

Chapter 19

IONE

On her return from London she went looking for her father. She found him in his office, behind his enormous desk. Normally he would be busy with reports, or issuing orders to aides. But instead he was taking pencils out of a box, one by one, and lining them up on his desk. Hundreds of pencils already lay on the desk, precisely aligned in serried ranks, and pencil boxes were neatly stacked on the floor next to the desk.

Ione’s heart sank. “Hello, Daddy, I’m back from London. Did you miss me?” she asked. 

At the sound of her voice, her father seemed to come out of a trance. He turned slowly, blinking at her. At length he spoke. “No. I mean, yes. You bet.” He looked at the pencil in his hand, then placed it carefully on the desk. He shook his head, then turned to her, smiling. “Did you have a good time?”

Ione smiled back. “Oh yes, thank you, it was lovely! Joseph will be coming back to Aeropolis next weekend!”

“I’m glad you found a friend. He seems like a good guy.”

“Oh, he is. It’s so nice to have someone my age around. All my other friends are back in New York.” She frowned. “Which reminds me, have you been able to check out those strange transmissions I picked up a few days ago?”

Her father grimaced. “Oh, that. Well, I spoke to Blake about it, and he doesn’t think we ought to worry. Could be a pure coincidence. Or maybe you copied it down wrong.”

Ione felt her temper rising. “Of course I didn’t! And what does Blake know, anyway? Why don’t you ask some of your radio guys?”

He looked embarrassed. “I— I don’t want to bother them with this, Ione. It’s probably nothing. They’ll think I’m letting you push me around. Let’s just drop it, OK?” He smiled winningly. But Ione was having none of it.

“It is not nothing, Daddy, it’s important! I know it is. You must speak to them about it. Blake’s wrong, he must be. You’ll see!” She tried to put on her most earnest, imploring expression.

But it didn’t seem to work. “Ok, I will, I promise,” her father mumbled, but he wouldn’t meet her eye, and she knew he was just saying it to get her to stop talking about it. 

“Ok, fine, Daddy, whatever,” she said angrily, and turned to go. He didn’t even try to stop her.

She was so annoyed that she ran straight back to her room and turned on her set again, determined to intercept more transmissions, ones which would prove beyond doubt that she had uncovered a spy ring right there on Aeropolis. She carefully tuned into the frequency which she had written down on her pad, and she waited patiently, but there was no activity, just the endless background susurration of the ether. She stared at the words on her pad, doodling around them.

Storm Tendency, this is Black Rose. Do you read me, over?

She remembered that this transmission, the first, had been the loud one. So that meant that Black Rose was the alias of someone on Aeropolis. But who?

Attempt failed. Target unharmed. Await further instructions, over.

She was still convinced that this was a reference to the deliberate ramming of H-1. Why could her father not see that?

Will check usual drop three days time.

What on earth did that mean? She looked at the words, but no meaning became apparent. Was Will a name? What was supposed to be dropped in three days time? It was like a random collection of words that didn’t belong together.