Sp?h shrugs, sort of a hell-if-I-know movement, and heads off down the corridor to the steps leading to B-deck. The American follows quite happily behind.
If the Zeppelin-Reederei has spared no expense in making the passenger quarters a statement of luxury, they have spared no expense in this part of the ship on their engineering marvel. He follows Joseph Sp?h out of the passenger area, through a heavy door, and onto the keel catwalk, feeling every bit as though he is traversing the spine of a Leviathan. Gone are the residential trappings. Once they pass through the access door at the end of B-deck, clearly marked CREW ONLY, they enter into a world of duralumin and pipes. Air shafts and gas tanks. Catwalks. Girders. Valves. Bracing wires. Above them are countless massive fabric bladders filled with hydrogen gas and covered with thick cell netting. To him they look like giant inflated lungs. It is like taking a tour through the skeletal system of an automaton. The subtle creaking of welded joints is audible here in the absence of walls and doors and ceilings. But most amazing to the American is the skin of the airship itself. While the outside of the Hindenburg is a dazzling silver, the inside had been coated in a deep crimson thermite paint, giving life to the feeling that they are indeed traipsing through the belly of a sentient beast. The lights along the catwalk are spaced at intervals of twenty feet and are in tightly secured glass globes, but nonetheless their dim illumination amplifies the eerie, lifelike quality of the space.
They step around a massive T-shaped cruciform brace that must be one of the central supports, and then a short distance beyond that the spiral staircase that connects the keel catwalk to the axial catwalk eighty feet above them. The American has traveled aboard the Graf Zeppelin a number of times but has never been outside the passenger areas. This is to him a new and profound and disturbing experience.
“I halfway suspect I’ll have nightmares tonight,” Joseph Sp?h says.
The American answers this observation with a grunt. He will have nightmares tonight as well, but they will be about different things. His nightmares will tap into the most basic, primal fear he has: losing control. Behind his closed eyes he will see things falling apart. He will grasp after missed opportunities and misinformation. He will hear whispers in languages he does not know, and he will see faceless shapes slipping around corners and ducking through doors while he is exposed, frozen, unable to follow. His dreams will be all shadow and no substance.
The American shudders. Clears his mind. Marches behind Joseph Sp?h with a new determination.
Finally the small man points to a metal door marked FREIGHT. “She’s in there.”
At the sound of his voice a high, keening whine comes from the other side, followed by a bark. Then a second, deeper bark.
The freight room is cold and dark and smells of stale air and dog piss.
“Shit,” Sp?h says. “I’m too late. Poor girl is probably scared stupid. Dogs piss on everything when they’re scared.”
So do men, the American thinks, but he does not say this out loud. He just stands back, watching.
Sp?h finds the light switch on the wall and a tepid glow fills the room. The cargo hold isn’t very large. And apart from two dog crates it contains a number of steamer trunks, boxes, and what looks to be a large piece of furniture wrapped in a blanket.
Ulla sees her master and barks. She spins in a tight circle inside her crate, her tail thrashing against the wicker slats with a thwap, thwap, thwap.
“Who does that one belong to?” The American points at a second crate that holds a large, shivering mutt. It might be the half-breed bastard of something resembling a greyhound.
“I don’t know.” The American moves closer but Sp?h says, “Watch your step.”
Three streams of urine trickle from a puddle in one corner of the mutt’s crate. Sp?h gently lifts the latch on Ulla’s crate. She pants. Presses her nose into the gap. Tries to force her way out.
“No,” Sp?h says. “Sit.”
The dog is reluctant and hungry but well trained. She drops her rump to the floor but cannot contain the frenzied thrashing of her tail. He sets the plate at his feet.
“Stay,” he says.
The mutt whimpers, eyes locked on the plate of food.
Joseph Sp?h pulls the crate door open and steps backward. Ulla stays where she is, though with a great effort. The American can see her training wrestling with her instinct. The muscles in her forelegs spasm with little jerks as she forces herself to obey.