The Gilded Scarab Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Is there no appeal, sir?”
    “Enhancements to medical retirement gratuities have always been at the Gallowglass’s discretion, Captain. Six months’ pay is all that is mandated legally.” Abercrombie pushed the paperwork across to me. “Do you have House resources you can call on?”
    Damn. Only the bare minimum the law allowed. Nothing extra for service above and beyond. Damned parsimonious. “No, sir. I’m House Stravaigor, as you may remember, but a cadet branch. The House saw to my education, of course, and purchased my commission, but I can expect no further aid there.”
    “I’m sorry, Lancaster.” And surprisingly Commander Abercrombie did sound sorry, although it must have really stretched his imagination to envisage the privations and problems faced by ordinary people who didn’t have his privilege to sustain them. The commander looked as though he’d bitten into a lemon. “You are one of the most skilled aeronauts I have ever commanded, and you’ve served Her Majesty well.”
    Well, there was the sop to soften the blow. How it must have hurt the commander to admit it! He was right, of course. I was the best aeronaut on the ship. I may have joined Her Britannic Majesty’s Imperial Aero Corps in an act of desperate rebellion rather than patriotic zeal, but I loved flying fast little aerofighters, the faster the better. I owned that clear blue sky out there. Nothing could come close to the sheer joy and exhilaration of, as Shakespeare has it, soaring up from the sullen earth. At least all the wars and skirmishes that delighted the Imperium had allowed me to fly and get some damn excitement out of life.
    Flying had become my life. And now it was gone.
    I tightened my mouth against the sigh that I would die before allowing the commander to hear, pulled the papers toward me, and signed. A lump sum of six month’s pay was better than nothing at all, and the pension might just about keep body and soul together if I wasn’t choosy about how well. It was something, anyway. I wasn’t entirely destitute. I returned both copies of my discharge papers to the commander, who scrawled an elegant signature over them and handed one copy back.
    “Perhaps,” said the commander, “I can now run this ship without you whipping up half the crew into a frenzy over cards and gambling….” He paused as if waiting for a response.
    Oh, for heaven’s sake! I enjoyed playing at piquet or whist or faro, and a guinea a point added spice to the game. I had deft hands for throwing dice at hazard, and knew the form of every racehorse in England. Guilty as charged, obviously. Still, despite Beckett’s acid comment about card sharping—the doctor was a notoriously bad loser—I was hardly running an illegal gaming hell. It was enough to make me the target of Commander Abercrombie’s periodic rages against gambling and drinking and womanizing on his ship, of course. Abercrombie was a teetotaler in every aspect of vice, with an old-maid’s horror of the seven deadly sins. What a miserable life he must lead.
    Abercrombie snorted. “Not to mention sending the other half into a frenzy of an indelicately emotional kind.”
    He was talking about Beckett’s nurses again.
    I think I was about fourteen when I discovered how useful charm was. All of the girls and most of the boys giggled and blushed when I smiled. And as for diverting a tutor righteously angry about a missed essay, or my father, angry about pranks played on the vicar… child’s play. Being charming worked . So I spent a lot of time at the mirror practicing until I’d perfected the smiles, the sparkle, the brightness about the eyes.
    It still worked. I was, though I say it myself, popular, and my company sought by all. At a ball, many of the gentlemen gathered around me for talk and cigars while the ladies repaid any slight interest with sweet, coquettish smiles and come-hitherish looks over the tops of their fans. They were susceptible to the effect of thick dark