by Conner, Jack
“I don’t want them to know where we’re going. If the Over-City is alerted to our coming, it’s all over. Let these people think we’re just trying to make a break for it.”
The captain was watching them strangely.
“You’re them, aren’t you?” he said. A jade trident swung from his neck. “The ones they’re looking for?” He gestured through the huge windows, down at the city. “What they all died for?” Anger and grief twisted his face, and his eyes glistened with moisture. He seemed to be barely keeping himself together. Avery didn’t doubt that the captain had a flask secreted somewhere on him, and that he was itching to have a sip.
“Yeah,” Hildra said. “We’re them. And we’re gonna bring down your fucking gods and the fucking war, too.”
Captain Konlil flinched, then glared at her. Avery shot her a sharp look, but she ignored him. She and the captain stared at each other for a long moment before a knock on the door interrupted them.
Heart beating fast, sweat on his forehead—please don’t let it be Carum please don’t let it be Carum—Avery opened the door and leapt back, gun raised. A middle-aged Lai woman in an expensive if flashy red dress and wearing a frilly red boa around her neck stood before him. She was somewhat dowdy, and her red eyes and running make-up hinted that she’d recently been crying, even more violently than the captain. She eyed Avery’s gun as if it were an alien object.
He lowered it slightly. “Madam Zerka, I presume?”
Her shock turned to anger, and she opened her mouth to scream for help.
Avery cocked the gun, and she reconsidered.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she said in Octunggen, but with a heavy Lai accent.
Avery blinked at her blunt language. He looked down the hall, saw that no one was coming, grabbed her hand and pulled her inside, locking the door behind them. He saw that Captain Konlil had moved close to Hildra, who had turned to see what the commotion was, and was about to spring on her.
“Watch out!” Avery said.
Hildra, as if she had merely been waiting for the man, stepped back suddenly and slammed her elbow into the captain’s gut. He gasped and sank to his knees. Several of his crew looked up in anger, and one made as if to stand up, but Hildra wiggled her gun at him and he sat back down. Sputtering, Captain Konlil rose to his feet and, slicking back his hair as if nothing had happened, quietly resumed his duties.
Janx, watching from the other side of the room, just shook his head.
Avery returned his attention to Madam Zerka—for who else could it be? She was studying the bridge as if she might be dreaming and expected to wake up at any minute. At last she sniffed and said, “I came to see why we were heading the wrong way, and I suppose I do. The refugees Central Authority is looking for have commandeered my establishment and are taking it to some undisclosed destination—likely just: away. That is about the size of it, correct?”
“That’s right, lady,” Hildra said. “If you want to do something about it, you’re gonna have to get in line behind the captain here.”
“No, I will leave the heroics to Macu. I merely want you off my ship as swiftly as possible.”
“So do we, lady, so do we,” Janx said.
Avery cleared his throat. “Actually, there is something you could help us with.”
She raised her eyebrows imperiously. “And why would I help you?”
He had uncocked his pistol. Without pointing it at her, he cocked it again. It made a suitably loud click.
Her eyebrows lowered. “Oh. Yes. Forgive me, it has been a long time since I’ve had a gun pointed at me.”
“Hopefully it will be a long time till the next one,” Avery said graciously.
She smiled, seeming to appreciate his civility. “What may I do for you?”
He told her and she frowned, but did as she was bid. She moved to the intercom and gave her message, and within minutes more knocking came from the door. This time Liru entered, looking quite perplexed, with a bloody and bruised Fredrick pushed before him. When Fredrick saw what was going on, he laughed so hard his belly quivered.
“This is going to hurt,” Frederick told Liru, and punched him across the mouth. The smaller man collapsed in a heap. Grinning sadistically, Frederick tied him up using Liru’s own shoe laces. Liru moaned but did not wake up.
“Thank you,” Frederick told Avery and the others. He was shaking his fist and eyeing the bloody knuckles happily.
“Don’t forget it,” Hildra said. “Now say hi to your mom.”
Frederick, all smiles, obediently crouched over his mother. “Hi, Ma.”
“The number of jellies is lessening,” Avery noted, looking out the window. “She should be better soon.”
Layanna stirred and moaned, and Avery fetched her some water, as the bridge was complete with sink and head, even an ice-box. She gulped the water down greedily. He took her temperature and checked her pulse, finding both markedly improved. Frederick prepared a damp cloth and placed it on her forehead, then held her hand.
“I feel better,” she told them after awhile. She spoke in a low, ragged voice, but there was strength behind it.
“Never expected otherwise,” Frederick said.
Avery let them have some privacy. For a time, mother and son spoke in hushed tones, and Avery hoped they were able to settle some of their issues. Both had just lost Edgar, after all. Perhaps that would unite them. Meanwhile Avery, Janx and Hildra kept pressure on the crew. Below stretched the towers of Ayu, then the suburbs, and ahead the swamps.
They neared the picket line of military airships that hemmed in the Ayu airspace, and Avery tensed. He saw Janx scowling hotly through the windows, gun clenched so tightly Avery feared either the weapon would break or Janx’s hand would
Paradise approached the picket line, breasted it, pulling even with the barrier of Octunggen military airships ... Avery could see the crews milling about in the gondolas, tweaking extradimensional weapons or staring out over the skies with binoculars, smoking cigarettes, talking ...
Avery expected the radio to squawk in challenge at any moment.
The zeppelin continued through the picket line—and finally passed it. None of the ships even hailed it. Who would dare slow the pleasure ship of General Carum?
They were through.
As one, Avery and the others let out a deep breath. They shared tight looks of congratulations but said nothing.
“We can’t go much farther,” Madam Zerka announced. “Already some guests will be wondering why we haven’t given permission for them to depart. With all the officers we’re taking with us, soon the Central Authority will investigate.”
“Don’t help them,” Captain Konlil hissed. “Damn you, woman!”
They stared at each other, the madam cool and the captain hot.
“This is my vessel, not yours,” Madam Zerka told him, “and I would rather it not become the scene of battle.”
“We all must sacrifice for the glory of the Collossum.”
“You sacrifice your home, not mine.”
It was clear to Avery that Madam Zerka, at least, was sympathetic to his and the others’ cause—as much of it as she could know, anyway. That intrigued him, as most of the madam’s clients were seemingly from the Octunggen upper echelons, the very powers Avery and the others meant to defy. Then again, she did not seem to be a convert, and perhaps seeing the Octunggen’s depravities and appetites on a daily basis, depravities performed on her fellow Lai, had soured her toward them. And after what they had done to Ayu ...
“Then we shall call this an end to our journey,” Avery told her. He paused, studying the madam. “To be honest, we will have to set fire to Paradise as we leave. This place is an abomination, but that’s not why. We must force an evacuation to cover our escape from any watchers.”
She wobbled and for a moment Avery thought she might faint. The thought of Paradise burning evidently disturbed her a great deal. It was a magnificent vessel, Avery had to admit,
and it was possible she had lived on it for many years.
At last she gathered a deep breath and said, “You understand, as soon as you depart, we must report you to the authorities.” She declared this flatly and without passion, as if merely for the captain’s benefit. If so, it worked.
“At last!” Konlil said. “Some sense!”
Avery nodded. “I understand. There is no way around it.”
Hildra gave him a sharp look and motioned for him and Janx to approach. They did, and she whispered harshly, “I don’t want them reporting us, Doc. We need to sneak into the Over-City. If they know we’re coming, we’re screwed.”
“She’s right,” Janx said.
“What’s the alternative?” Avery asked.
Hildra and Janx looked at him grimly, and he realized what they were getting at. He felt a chill.
“We can’t kill them,” he stated.
“Why not?” said Hildra. “They can’t call the authorities if they’re dead.”
“She’s got a point,” Janx said.
“No.” Avery made his voice flat. “You made a vow to follow me, and that’s what I’m saying.”
“Screw the vow,” Hildra said. “We should make sure they can’t call the Over-City, by any means necessary.”
Avery stared at her, hard. “Is that what you really want to do?”
She lifted her gun, agitated, and seemed to go through an intense struggle. Avery could see the cords stick out from her neck and her face flush with blood. Beads of sweat popped out on her brow. He didn’t know what he would do if she insisted on carrying out the murders. He thought of Layanna and the young girl and her brother. He thought of Ayu. He thought of Ani. How many people is it necessary to sacrifice to the Device?
Finally Hildra lowered the gun. “I guess not, Doc,” she said, sounding defeated. “I guess not.”
Avery wiped sweat from his brow. “Then let us get back to business.”
The rest was easy. They were far from the center of the sea of jellies and well outside Ayu airspace, and Layanna was just shaking off the last threads of the jellies’ barrage. Guns drawn, the group entered the halls of the brothel and set fire to every curtain and piece of furniture they passed. Soon screams and shouts echoed from down the halls and the fire alarm pounded frantically. Smoke filled the corridors and guests fought each other to reach their dirigibles. Prostitutes, some only half dressed, scrambled aboard the dirigibles as well, and Avery enjoyed imagining the scenes when the ships arrived at their homes.
Avery let Layanna pick the vessel they were to hijack, as she was more familiar with Octunggen airships than anyone else in the party. She chose a large, beautiful, oaken ship, whose crew was frantically preparing her. They left quickly enough, however—to hitch a ride on another ship, doubtlessly—when Avery’s company stormed aboard and fired off a few shots. In addition to its captain and owner, Avery requested (at gunpoint) that three of the crew stay on to man the ship, as it was larger and more complicated than any he had ever been on, an aerial yacht to be sure, but fit for military use, with forward- and stern-mounted guns and the Lightning Crest emblazoned on its envelope; he and the others would need help manning it.
Before the ship disengaged, Fredrick approached. In a lowered voice, he said, “I’ll take that hava now.”
Avery had almost forgotten about the packet. “Yes, I suppose a deal is a deal, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Reluctantly, Avery dug into his breast pocket and handed it over.
Frederick stared at it fondly. “Thank you. I know just what to do with this.”
Without another word, he marched over to the gunwale and hurled the packet overboard. Avery and Layanna looked at him in amazement.
“Frederick!” Layanna said.
He stared after the falling packet wistfully, then turned to her and shrugged. “Never let it be said I don’t learn from my mistakes.”
She embraced him, and Avery could see her pride.
“There’s still time for you to leave,” she said. “You can sneak aboard another dirigible and escape in the confusion. Start a new life.”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
“Thought you said we were doomed, Junior,” Janx said.
Frederick’s eyes glittered. “I still do. I think we’re going to our graves.”
“Then why come?”
“Because I think—I must—that you have some chance at success, however small, and I can’t turn away from an opportunity to strike back at the bastards that treated my father and I like garbage, all because we wanted to stay human, and ultimately killed him.” Contemplatively, he added, “Withdrawal’s going to be a bitch, though.”
Hildra and Janx ordered the crew to disengage, and the yacht slipped away from the dock, along with dozens of others. Avery looked around to see the sky over the swampland filled with fantastic dirigibles, all soaring away from Paradise as fast as their motors could carry them. The zeppelin, gleaming under the stars, sailed on, majestic and swollen. Avery imagined Madam Zerka staring out the windows from her own yacht at all the departing dirigibles, and imagined Captain Konlil reaching for the radio.
Avery yanked out the captain’s flask and knocked back a sip. “Tell them to hurry,” he told Hildra, indicating the crewmen.
She nodded, hair blowing around her face. The dirigible was built something like one of the sailboats Avery had read about that plied the Great Inland Sea—a large interior section where most of the relaxation took place, complete with living room and bedrooms, and a large upper deck exposed to the elements where most of the actual work occurred. The three crewmen fired the jets, operated the wheels and cranked the gears that kept the large yacht swiftly racing through the skies. Avery relished the wind against his skin, but it brought tears to his eyes and grew abrasive after awhile. Still, he did not suggest they slow down.
Janx joined him at the gunwale and shared the flask with him, and the big man tossed back a large dose, grimaced, and sighed. His eyes roved over the deck, the skies, the many craft scattered about, then finally settled on Hildra. She was marching up and down the deck purposefully, gun at her hip, hook shining. She looked like a pirate—which, Avery supposed, wasn’t too far from the truth at the moment.
“Good thing you did back there,” Janx said.
“You mean ...”
“Those folk on the bridge. Hildra might’ve done it, too. She’s got a dark streak, she does. And I wouldn’t have stopped her.” Janx took another sip, then added, “She wouldn’t have killed the madam and all ‘cause of that, though. Would’ve done it for the other side. Sometimes the light requires a little blood.”
“I know,” Avery admitted. He had been thinking much the same thing.
Janx handed him back the flask, and Avery drank. Wind sighed across the bow, crackling the canvas of the envelope.
Paradise exploded. The fires had reached the gas bags in the envelope, and they erupted in a massive fireball that rained flame and debris in all directions. Fleeing dirigibles just barely dodged the shrapnel that hurled past them. The fires consumed the whole of Paradise, eating into it viciously, and its remains fell from the sky in an arc of flame and sparks that danced high overhead. Avery watched it fall, wondering if General Carum had made it out, or Madam Zerka. Perhaps she had decided to go down with the ship. For some reason, he hoped not. But some people must have died in the blast, and the most likely victims of it would be the innocents. The prisoners, the slaves, the prostitutes.
“Hell of a thing,” Janx said.
“Yeah,” Avery agreed, for a moment unable to say anything else. Then, quietly, because it was weighing on him: “Do you think I should have been willing to sacrifice those people on the bridge?”
Janx rubbed his face, furrowing it into countless whiskered creases and valleys. “I don’t know, Doc. I don’t know.”
“Would you have done it? I know you wouldn’t have stopped Hildra, but would you have started it?”
Silent
, Janx gave him a steady look, and Avery went cold.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where ... where did you go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t. During our escape, I remember you doubled back for a few minutes. To set fires, I thought. But ... you didn’t have any soot on you when you returned.”
Janx heaved out a breath. “You sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I went back and shot the captain.”
“What?”
Janx shrugged his broad shoulders. “He would’ve informed on us. The others wouldn’t. Madam Zerka even looked relieved when I did it. But the captain, he was a damned convert.”
“So you just shot a man in cold blood.”
“If the captain’d let the Over-City know we were comin’, he would’ve fucked the whole world.”
Avery wanted to be mad at Janx, but he saw no logical way to be so. Janx was in the right, painful as it was for him to admit it.
“I think I need another drink,” Avery said, “but first I have something to do. We may be out of Ayu, but we’re still in Octunggen-occupied airspace and will have to cross many boundaries before we reach the Over-City, assuming it travels as fast as I think it does. We’ll need the proper codes to get us through.”
“That why you requested the owner of the vessel stay on?”
Avery nodded. “I think I’ll pay him a visit.”
Janx raised his eyebrows. His voice, however, lowered: “Need some comp’ny?”
“Actually, I was thinking Layanna might be able to help.”
* * *
Savig Musterlik vun Cuvastaq, owner and captain of the yacht, was tied up naked in the master bedroom when Avery and Layanna found him some minutes later. The bedroom was magnificent and lavish: the wooden surfaces gleaming and smelling of resin; a fully stocked bar in one corner, the door to a private head in another; arched whale tusks meeting over the four-poster bed. Vun Cuvastaq sprawled spread-eagled on the bed, his body tense, every muscle rigid, sweat sheening his face. His wrists and ankles were tied to the bed posts. His eyes bulged when Avery and Layanna entered, and he visibly flinched.
