No Smoke in My Engine Room

Wednesday. A woman with an inhaler in her pocket asked, very politely, whether there would be smoke. I was insulted on behalf of my engine.

The Nautilus runs on electricity, as any educated person knows, and electricity does not smoke unless something has gone badly wrong, in which case smoke is the least of anyone’s worries. There is no smoke aboard her, in Perth or in Sydney. Not a puff. The air may be running out, in the story, but what there is of it is clean.

Her husband then asked whether it was cramped. Submarines, he said, are famous for it. Mine is not. Nobody crawls anywhere aboard either vessel; I am a captain, not a ferret. A room is still a room, so a nervous traveller should say so at check-in, but I built her for walking about in, with a straight back and a sense of purpose.

They surfaced together, breathing beautifully. She said the air had been excellent. I have had that framed.