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The Unfortunate Business at Doppler Hall

The Dwarf Star hadn’t seen him in a while. The regulars had changed; the few familiar faces all ignored them. Perhaps they thought he’d grown old. Perhaps they thought he’d grown soft. Silver’s augments ached at odd hours, but the edges were still sharp.

My contribution to the Rattle the Stars @treasure-planet-zine, a quick little 2.5k post-canon piece about debts repaid, old family friends, and why it's inadvisable to invest in *checks notes* crypt currency. Hope you enjoy!

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Mrs. Hawkins was at her wit’s end, not that anyone would know it from her letters to Jim at the Academy. She assured him that all was well, and that the new Benbow Inn would be finished long before the tourist season. In reality, it would be finished two weeks after the first cruisers came in, and the construction noise had already begun keeping her up at all hours of the night.

Finally, she could take no more of it. Mrs. Hawkins packed her luggage, told her contractors to carry on while she was away, and set her sights on sleeping elsewhere, anywhere. Unfortunately, she had scarcely opened the door before she bumped into Dr. Doppler, luggage in hand, with a dozen loosely rolled parchments tucked under his arm.

“Oh, Delbert!” Mrs. Hawkins laughed, a little hysterical with relief. “There you are, how good to see you! You know, I was just on my way over? I was hoping I might sleep at Doppler Hall for a few days. The noise, Delbert. You have no idea.”

“Oh, er,” said Dr. Doppler with a grimace. “Yes, well, in fact, I was actually hoping- you see, it’s just that- well I was rather hoping I might sleep here-”

“Sleep here!”

“Just for a day or two!” Dr. Doppler said hastily. The rolls of parchment had begun to slip from under his arm; he had to balance unsteadily with one elbow on the doorframe to keep them in place. “Just until the construction noise dies down. I was going to take this inn up the road, but I know how you feel about that place, Sarah. I won’t give them a single crown. Oh, er, I don’t suppose I could borrow a crown? I’m a little hard up at the moment.”

“Delbert,” said Mrs. Hawkins, with her hand on her forehead. “By Jupiter, Delbert, sit down.”

“Thank you,” he said, wobbling past her and collapsing into one of the new dining chairs. He looked worn out from stress, and Mrs. Hawkins saw with a little pang of sympathy that his whiskers had begun to gray at the ends. “It’s alright, it’s just a temporary thing. I’ll pay you off in six months time, space scouts honor!”

“What do mean, construction noise?” Mrs. Hawkins rubbed the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb. “What’s happening at your home? It’s not for the wedding, is it? For goodness’ sake, Delbert. I thought Captain Amelia quite liked your home!”

Dr. Doppler’s ears perked up slightly; he smiled. “She does, she does. Says she’s never met someone who looks at the stars for fun before, imagine that. No, it’s all under Doppler Hall I’m afraid. You see, I met this chap in the mining business and his friend from the clergy, and they tell me, well, they tell me they’ve been doing some surveying, and there’s this ancient crypt under Doppler Hall.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Hawkins, biting her lip. She ducked into the kitchen and returned with two cups of tea balanced on her arm. “And you believe them?”

“Well, I let them dig around behind the observatory, just for a lark, you know. And- thank you, Sarah-” said Dr. Doppler, accepting his cup gratefully, “-and would you believe it, they’d been digging hardly ten minutes before they brought up a bit of moonclay pottery and a handful of coins for me to take a look at! It’s amazing, Sarah, the kind of treasures to be found if you just dig, and they told me this crypt is meant to be filled from end to end with such coins! Imagine! All they ask is a bit of funding for the operation and so they can mine out these crypt coins. I stand to make a substantial profit after the excavation is complete, of course.”

“Oh, Delbert,” Mrs. Hawkins said gently. “Have you talked to your fiancé about this?”

“She’s taken the Legacy around the cape for gunnery exercises,” said Dr. Doppler. He blew the steam off his tea and began to lap it out of the cup. “Besides, I mean . . . well, I thought it best not to trouble her with, you know. The particulars. Not until my investment pays off. She’s a spacewoman through and through, and hasn’t got the sense for planetary matters.”

“And you do?”

“Certainly,” Dr. Doppler said primly. “You know, my kind, we’re renowned diggers. Very earthy-minded. Born with a space and a pick in our hands, as they say.”

“Have you ever dug a hole in your life?”

“Well, no. I hire people for that kind of thing.”

“Delbert,” said Mrs. Hawkins, with a little desperation. “I think you should talk this through with Captain Amelia.”

It didn’t rain on Crescentia, but the fog season came in thick and heavy with every lunar cycle. The damp air reminded Long John Silver of long nights on distant moons, watching cerulean seas pant and writhe while he dredged up rockfish from the beaches. He could wring a meal out of anything. A fish, a rock, a planet. Maybe even the tavern fare at the Dwarf Star, if he ate quickly and didn’t let the chowder sit for too long.

He was sitting the back corner, not talking, taking long, slow pulls from his cider and thinking about money. Silver had come into a good bit of it of late- some of it honest, too- and what little he’d held onto still burned a hole in his pocket. So he came here. Crescentia. Civilization.

The Dwarf Star hadn’t seen him in a while. The regulars had changed; the few familiar faces all ignored them. Perhaps they thought he’d grown old. Perhaps they thought he’d grown soft.

Silver’s augments ached at odd hours, but the edges were still sharp.

Firelight flickered behind the grate, throwing shadows up the walls. A fiddle player had taken to leaning by the door- close enough to run if someone had a mind to throw him out- and was playing a quiet Martian ballad. No one paid him any mind.

Silver took another long, slow drink. Perhaps they were right. He was getting old. Time was, he’d have taken it as gospel that he’d die with no one but Morph for company. Morph’s kind didn’t die, not in the traditional sense. But no, the little bugger was happy, no doubt. Out at the Academy with Jim lad, circling some distant star.

The damp air had begun to worry its teeth into Silver’s joints. He rubbed the servos in his leg with one hand, working out the numbness. He gritted his teeth. Old man.

“. . . the old man.”

Silver could leave without paying- usually did- but it wouldn’t do on Cresentia. There were posters up with his face on them, penny bloods proclaiming him the king of all space-devils. Better not to attract attention, not when he still had business to take care of before shipping out. Captan Amelia would surely be called at the first sign of Long John Silver.

“. . . of his coin purse.”

He paused, listened. The voices were rough and low, meaning not to be heard over the mournful fiddle player. He recognized in one voice the dry, drawling accent of the mantis-folk.

“. . . and suppose he catches on?”

“Bah, his kind never do. Absent-minded professor type, starstruck, head in the clouds. Fell for it like a bird in a gravity well. Not that I could’ve done it alone, though. Academics are always so quick to distrust a mantis of the cloth.”

Silver eyed their reflections in the mirror over the bar. One was short and thick-bellied and made entirely of a semitransparent blue slime. The other was a mantis dressed in black, with a small tab of white visible at the collar. They spoke with their heads close together, heaps of untouched tavern brisket cooling on their plates.

“I was thinking of Doppler Hall,” said the mantis. “You know, my parish is no longer quite as profitable for me as it has been in the past. We’re in need of a place to expand. Once we’ve run that old fool ragged with all our drilling and hammering-”

“-and drained his coffers dry-”

“-it will be the work of but a moment to move in and start passing the collection plate.”

Silver gestured the barkeep for another round and leaned back in his chair, rubbing under the folds of his neck. It was an idiot’s scheme, and only an idiot would fall for it. But Doppler Hall . . . that had to be Dr. Doppler, Captain Amelia’s man. The dog-faced scientist.

“Bit of a bad turn you’ve taken, aye, doc,” he murmured to himself. His smile faded slightly at the thought of Dr. Doppler in hysterics over it. Wringing his hands, bemoaning the state of the world. Cancelling the wedding, perhaps, too deep in debt to go through with it. Captain Amelia gazing out the window of her cabin, her gaze steady, a letter crumpled tight in her claws.

Silver sighed bitterly. He looked down into his fresh drink, saw the lens of his eye reflected there.

“She did you a good turn once, eh, Johnny boy?” he said quietly. “Saw your black flying a mile distant and let you go. Just last week, she did. You owe her a debt.”

Behind him, he heard the clicking sound of a mantis laughing. Ah, well. Captain Amelia could consider it a wedding present.

Grimacing, Silver drained his cup, set it down, and turned in his seat.

“Now then, you lot,” he said. “What’s this about Doppler Hall?”

“I don’t understand it!” said Dr. Doppler, almost shouting to be heard over the bustling commerce of the harbor. “It’s been days now, and I haven’t seen them! Construction’s entirely ceased!”

“Don’t you think it’s for the best, Delbert?” Mrs. Hawkins said gently. The wind had been threatening to tear off her bonnet, and she’d resorted to carrying it under one arm. “If it had gone on any longer, they’d have bankrupted you.”

“The return on my investment would’ve more than made up for it,” Dr. Doppler wailed. “A con, a con! I can’t believe it! The sale of the crypt coins alone-”

“Oh, oh! Delbert, look!” Mrs. Hawkins pointed up towards the mooring docks, where the topmen had already begun retying the hawsers.

“Darling!” Dr. Doppler cried, elbowing his way through the mid-afternoon throng. “Darling, down here! Welcome home! We weren’t expecting you until Sunday!”

“Hullo there, Doctor!” Captain Amelia Smollett shouted from her perch atop the Legacy’s taffrail. She stood upon it with perfect balance, her hands clasped behind her, while the Legacy groaned and settled into its mooring point. “Clear skies from here to the cape and some very fine Anguilla astra besides!”

Dr. Doppler ran forward, making room for Mrs. Hawkins to follow after him, and together they watched and waited for the bosun to give the all-clear. Only then did Captain Amelia leap down from her perch, turning gracefully in the air to land on her feet.

“Welcome back, Captain,” said Mrs. Hawkins, grinning in spite of herself. There was something in Captain Amelia that made her feel giddy and childish; it was like a glimpse of another life, one where she had allowed her childhood storybooks to carry her far, far away from the Benbow Inn. “I’d offer you a meal at my inn, but unfortunately-”

“Oh, pish-posh,” Captain Amelia said pleasantly, shaking Mrs. Hawkins’ hand firmly with both of her own. “I’ve a tab running at my usual place, you’ll join me in my rooms there. I don’t doubt the construction noise has you tearing your hair out, eh?”

“It certainly does,” Mrs. Hawkins looked sidelong at Dr. Doppler. “Now, on the subject of construction-”

Captain Amelia’s ear twitched and she looked sharply up at the Legacy’s hull. “Mind it yourself, Smithback! I’ll be there presently! I’m sorry, my dear. You were saying?”

“I think Delbert here had something he wanted to tell you about his estate.”

“Hmm?” Captain Amelia frowned. “What’s this now? I trust that all is well?”

“Of course! Of course,” Dr. Doppler said uneasily. “It’s just that- well, hmm. How do I put it. You see, the long and short of it is- Oh, my!”

Mrs. Hawkins hand jumped to cover her mouth. Dr. Doppler had been accosted by two men- one semi-transparent, slimy, and leaning on a crutch, the other a mantis with one bulbous eye wrapped up tightly in gauze. Both were talking animatedly, all but pulling Dr. Doppler away from the group.

“-and thank the Etherium we found you. Of course, we’ll repay it all,” said the mantis, anxiously wringing his claws together. “Every crown, and we’ll put everything right back the way it was, we promise.”

“We’ve learned our lesson, Dr. Doppler,” said the slime gentleman. He shook Dr. Doppler’s hand so vigorously that flecks of blue goo splattered his frock coat. “We got your message loud and clear, didn’t we, Father?”

“Oh yes, definitely!”

“Well, I- I certainly hope so,” said Dr. Doppler uncertainly. He looked over his shoulder as if to say, help me, Sarah! “I’m glad you seem to have, erm, seen the error of your ways?”

“It would seem so . . .” Mrs. Hawkins bit her lip, looking from one stranger to the other. She looked up at Captain Amelia, who now stood with her hand on her chin, deep in thought. A dawning look of interest crossed her face.

The warm afternoon gave way to a brisk, dusky evening, bringing with it the sound of gulls and singing down by the harbor. Captain Amelia’s rooms were cramped, but comfortable. She turned three times before sitting down- for luck, she said- and ordered the hottest meal in the house for Mrs. Hawkins and Dr. Doppler’s enjoyment.

“Those two gentlemen from before,” she said quietly, when Mrs. Hawkins went down to help the porter. “I don’t suppose they got the better of you, dear? Financially, I mean?”

“Oh, of course not,” came Dr. Doppler’s prim reply. “Your fiancé isn’t one to taken in by a con artist. By Jupiter, no.”

Captain Amelia’s eyes narrowed. “No, certainly not.”

“That’s right.”

“I suppose it’s only best they had the sense knocked into them. They both looked rather banged up.”

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Dr. Doppler said, his eagerness betraying him. “What luck!”

Captain Amelia studied Dr. Doppler’s face. She thought about the injuries to the scoundrels’ bodies and pride, and the wanted posters up all over town, and the solar bird that had cut through the Etherium like a comet, delivering to her the news that Long John Silver had been seen roughing up two men at the Dwarf Star, and her gunnery exercises must be cut short.

“Of course,” she said, with a small smile. “What luck.”

Perhaps Long John Silver had made good on his debt after all.

#Treasure Planet #Treasure Planet zine #zine #Jim Hawkins #Long John Silver #Captain Amelia #16th #October #2023 #October 16th 2023

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