The Acquisitions Bureau; Mandatory Invitation

Chapter 3 ~ Adventures in Upper London

The Skyport was a bustling hub of activity. Merchants of all trades and vocations shunted their wares onto the over-crowded ships and argued over fares and fees. The air reeked of coal smoke and scorched oil. Pollution and corruption were rampant hereabouts, and one had to guard their purse and person equally. The airships' hulls appeared as the bellies of beasts looming darkly in the gloom and fading altogether once they launched from their respective berths.

The two men made their way through the crowd. Sparks leading the way, and Thatch trailing after; over encumbered by what possessions he could manage to carry with him. Cutter would no doubt find his way around to his residence once rid of the spring-trap, and Thatch thought it prudent to be elsewhere when that happened. Sparks had agreed to put him up for a time at his home, but neglected to aid him with the conveyance of his belongings, which proved quite heavy.

"Must you walk so slowly?" Sparks queried.

"Must you... walk so... quickly?" Thatch puffed from behind.

A gaggle of wanton women lingered by the pier waving their fans in the way a woman does when trying to gain a particular type of attention, though a lady does no such thing. The Aeronauts seemed keen on their fan waving, as did some of the merchants and vendors. Mr. Sparks leered at them from a distance while Mr. Thatch bashfully looked away from their bare shoulders and short hemmed dresses, observing instead the goings on around him. Finding nothing whatever surprising.

A drunk was booted out the door of an inn, A vagrant begged for coins at a corner, A cab driver coaxed a panicky horse, A little girl with mushroom-brown pigtails stole an apple from a passing cart, A Man with shabby whiskers counted out some money, and placed a coin in his pocket after a suspicious sideways glance.

Thatch's eye was caught by a fluttering blur of red. It was an Airman's scarf of unusual length attached to a portly old man chewing a corncob pipe, and intermittently shouting about someone or other's treatment of his airship, which was a prim and pretty little thing from what anyone could see through the weather. Evidently someone had marred her in some minor fashion, perhaps chipping a bit of paint or scratching her polished railing, but from the way he carried on about it one would have thought someone had laid hands on his wife.

"How would you like to be caught catching a lift from him?" Thatch joked gesturing at the cantankerous old gentleman. Mr. Sparks hadn't noticed, and took a lot of directing before he picked the grumbler out of the crowd.

"He sounds like an American." Sparks remarked. "But that is their way of course, they shout about everything."

The pair soon came to a ferry. An engineless craft held down with a set of monstrous heavy chains bound to a gigantic mechanized winch. The machine had no element of elegance about it whatsoever. The ungainly thick gears and gross over-simplicity of the device peeved Mr. Thatch a great deal, and a dozen or so much more efficient configurations immediately sprang to mind. But he was not in a position to employ them, so he kept the thought to himself. He also supposed it was built that way so any fool could repair it, and no one would suspect it of growing a mind of it's own. A pity too, it could have been a marvelous machine.

They stood among the throng of cooks, maids, chimney sweeps, and others who had taken a day to visit family below and were now headed back to their station above. While they waited, Sparks droned on and on about how long they had been standing, and made conversation with a young lady wearing entirely too much rouge. Thatch, to amuse himself, set to thinking out the best way he might augment the mechanism of the winch. By the time they had paid their fare and found a good place to wedge themselves, Thatch had given up on the winch, and Sparks had given up on the girl.