She was just waking up when her comm went off. "Hey, love," she heard. "Got a minute? Can you drop by the docks?"
She agreed and tapped the device to end the call when shock flooded through her, pulling her upright out of bed. The Duke was back?!
When she got to the docks, she stumbled, her tail failing to help her with balance, and she only recovered when she fetched against a steel-plated curve, studded with rivets. What on earth...She stepped back and tilted her now human head, very confused. She'd seen historical pictures from the second world war of German-designed circular craft, and...this certainly seemed to fit.
She followed the curve around to an inset door on the other side, and the small metal ramp leading in, following it up to the second deck, her shoes ringing on the riveted floor. And there he was.
She just stared at him for several moments. Perfectly relaxed, gearing up for a flight, she thought. Standing there in his Napoleonic best, burnished gold fur gleaming under the lights.
"Where did you find this?" she asked. She looked down. And what on earth was she wearing...?
The ship lifted off and tilted alarmingly. The Duke stayed relatively steady; she fought not to fall down. "What do you mean?" he asked, distracted.
What?
She stepped closer to the central panel. Good thing she knew how to walk in ballet heels, though it was more difficult on the ringing metal surface. She watched his hands move confidently over the switches.
"Why are the buttons labeled in German?" she asked.
"What do you mean, love?"
The ship tilted again before it evened out, and she slid closer to one of the walls. She looked up at a fuse panel, confused again.
"This one's labeled in kanji," she murmured. He looked over at her briefly.
"Is everything okay?" he asked. He sounded concerned.
She felt dizzy again as the craft tilted in the opposite direction. "Are we going up or down?" she asked. "I think down..."
She heard the splash of water against the metal hull. Sparks began to fly from a side panel. Water filled the chamber. She looked over at the Duke.
"We're flooding!"
The Duke just looked puzzled. "Well, that's not supposed to happen..."
She watched as he sank calmly beneath the rising water, and when it rose to her, she kicked out from the wall, searching for the exit, searching for him...and finding neither. There was a swirl of dark water and she lost track of direction for a moment, and then surfaced, gasping.
She was floating in the bay of Gearhaven. She had fur again. What in all the hells had just happened...
Midway between panic and exhilaration, she swam for shore, ran to the marble bathroom in Steam for a towel, and then ran for the shuttle she hoped was still in the garden. She touched her ear to send a signal to Justine.
"Duchess?" she heard. "What--"
"What do you know about quantum ghosts?"
There was a pause. "I've been doing some research into quantum states, actually..." Justine said slowly, and she just nodded, strapping into the shuttle chair and programming in coordinates. "Meet me on Tannhäuser!" she said. "I may have a theory!"
(Continued in part XXII.)
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