Skykeep

by Joseph R. Lallo

  Still there was no sound of footsteps.

  “I don’t like this one bit. We’re getting out of here, darlin’,” Lil said, pulling back the hammer of the pistol. “Plug your ears. This makes a heck of a noise in a place like this.”

  Nita did so, Lil doing her best to do the same while still aiming. She pulled the trigger, and a thunderous boom echoed off the walls, her bullet lodging in the delicate locking mechanism. Lil took one hand from the gun and tried the knob. It turned, but only slightly. Nita quickly put her wrench to work on the knob, clamping it down and turning. The added leverage was just about enough to get it to turn, and the two of them yanked the door open. Wind rushed from behind them, and it dragged with it not just the gagging scent of fug, but a few curls of the toxic vapor. Suddenly the gas pipes on the walls rang and shuddered. The flames lighting the room died away.

  Without delay, Nita grasped the helmet on her belt and sparked a flame to light, holding it with her nonwrench hand to light the room.

  “Lil!”

  Lil whipped around, pistol at the ready, and at the first glimpse of what was approaching, fired. Three men dressed in thick layers of strange, leathery black material were stalking out of the darkness. Their faces were partially obscured by masks, but there was no mistaking what little flesh remained exposed. The men were stark white, like bleached bone. Their eyes were a reddish brown, and they walked with an odd, twisted posture. Fug folk. Lil’s shot had knocked the one in front to the ground. The others scattered and charged. Lil fired twice more, but the fuggers were faster than she’d expected and neither shot met its mark. One of them grappled with her, and the other attempted to do the same with Nita, only to take three punishing blows from her wrench, sending him to the ground. She then tackled the fugger attempting to disarm Lil, sending the scrawny but surprisingly strong assailant sprawling.

  The light dangling from Nita’s belt swung about chaotically, casting illumination all around, however briefly. Acting quickly, Lil fired two quick rounds into the chest of the fugger Nita had knocked down, then put a boot to the head of the one who had tangled with Nita to keep him down.

  “You wanna end up like your friends there, or you wanna act like a gentleman and tell us what you were trying to do?” Lil asked, putting her pistol to his forehead.

  Before anyone could speak, or even react, Nita and Lil each felt something close around their ankles. A firm yank pulled them from their feet, sending them spilling forward. Lil fell on top of her would-be informant, pulling the trigger as she went but only managing to graze his temple. A hand held tight to Nita’s braid and pulled her head back, another one grasping Lil’s ponytail to do the same. The first man Lil had shot was on his feet again, the light of the helmet revealing the bullet divot in his chest only as deep as the first layer of uniform and not leaking any blood. He was dousing a rag with a strong-smelling chemical, while what was presumably the second fugger Lil had shot pressed his knees into the smalls of the girls’ backs. They each struggled, Lil peppering their assailants with hair-curling profanities, but all it did was earn the deckhand the first dose of the rag. She struggled more violently for a moment, then fell still. Nita fought harder, but to no avail. The rag was pressed to her mouth, and the world went dark.

  Chapter 2

  “So this here is the prettiest one you got?” Coop said, turning a music box over in his hands.

  He stood in a curio shop in the market district of Lock, which was the name they gave the section of catwalk that had all seven of the storefronts the town had to offer. Around him were shelves carefully arranged with contraptions, figurines, and ceramics. The music box in question was made from stained mahogany. When he clicked it open, it tinkled a gay little tune he didn’t recognize, all while a tiny tin ballerina pirouetted gracefully.

  “Well, beauty is a matter of taste, sir. I could show you any of the others if you’d like,” said the shopkeeper. She was an older woman, dressed in a gown that seemed simultaneously too formal and too complex to be appropriate for a storekeeper. It was a full gown, complete with bustle, and her hair was put up in a beehive that was tall enough to be bordering on architectural.

  “But are they more pretty or less pretty? I only want to see them if they’re more pretty,” Coop said. “The lady this is for has got a real good eye for this sort of thing, and I don’t want her to look at what I bring her and say ‘Why didn’t you get the pretty one?’ You get my meaning?”

  “I’m sure your lady friend will be quite satisfied.”

  “Okay. You’re a lady, so I reckon you’d know what a lady would like. They all look the same to me,” he said. “Now how about the insides? They pretty?”

  “You’re looking at them right now, sir,” the shopkeeper said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Not this inside. The inside of the inside. Where the fiddly bits are. Are there lots of fiddly bits? This lady, she likes the fiddly bits. Fiddlier the better.”

  “I assure you that the workings are of the highest quality, and stunningly intricate. Quite… fiddly, sir.”

  “This’ll be the one then. You said this’d be fifty, right?”

  “Seventy-five, sir.”

  “That’s a mite steep.”

  “You pay for beauty, sir.”

  “Well sure, but you said beauty’s a matter of taste. This here tastes more like fifty.”

  “I’d be willing to give it to you for seventy.”

  “I’d be willing to let you keep it for seventy. Might take it with me for sixty.”

  The proprietor sighed. “Sixty-five might be acceptable.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Coop said, clicking the lid shut and setting it down so that he could count out the payment in fives. It was a task that pushed him to the very limits of his mathematical knowledge. Once he’d worked out the right amount, and the shopkeeper was counting to keep him honest, he dug around in his pocket.

  “Since you’re a lady, maybe you could tell me. I got started on this poem here. You reckon a lady would like it?” He unfurled the page and cleared his throat.

  There was a terrifying crackle, then a deep, rumbling roar that rattled the contents of the shelves.

  “What the hell is that?” Coop said.

  “I don’t know. It sounds like it came from the mines,” said the shopkeeper.

  “The mines? But Lil’s at the mines! And Nita too!”

  He snatched his purchase and sprinted onto the wooden slats of what passed for streets in Lock. There he quickly found that the whole of the town had chosen to do the same. He shouldered, elbowed, and when necessary punched his way through the crowd, rushing for the courtyard at the mouth of the mines. The courtyard was flooding with people, both from townsfolk rushing to see what had happened and miners rushing out for fear of what would happen next. Dusty air was pouring out of one of the entrances. Someone in a very official-looking uniform shouted something as Coop sprinted past, and someone else stopped him with a hand to his chest.

  “You can’t go any farther, sir. It’s too dangerous,” the man said.

  “My sister’s in there!” he cried, shoving the man aside.

  The man grabbed him from behind and held him back. “Sir! I’m the safety officer of the mine. You can’t go inside. It is too dangerous!”

  Without looking, Coop reached back and grabbed the man’s belt, then, with a swift hook of his heel, kicked one of his legs out from under him. As the man stumbled to get his balance, Coop pulled at his belt and overbalanced him, pivoting him as he fell so that he landed square on his back. Before the safety officer could reclaim the wind that had been knocked from him, Coop cocked his pistol. He leaned low and pushed it beneath the man’s chin. The deckhand had a terrifying, manic look in his eyes.

  “My sister is in there. And if you mean to keep me from her, then it’s about to get real dangerous for you out here, too.”

  “Weapon away, Coop,” bellowed Captain Mack as he thumped up to the scene, huffing and puffing.

  A fe
w steps behind him was Gunner, and a few steps farther was Butch.

  Reluctantly, Coop holstered the weapon and pulled the safety officer to his feet.

  “Someone better start talking about what happened here. I’ve got two members of my crew in that mine,” the captain said.

  The safety officer tried to catch his breath. “Sir, we are evacuating the mine now. If they are inside, they will be coming out, but you have to let us do our job.”

  “Right then. Make room, Coop. Glinda, see to anyone who needs help. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for Lil and Nita.”

  A few minutes passed, Coop barely able to restrain himself as the carefully practiced procedures played out in front of them. One by one, each miner turned his or her tag over to the safety officer, who replaced it in the cabinet. With remarkable efficiency, not five minutes later the last of the tags were being hung up. There were three hooks vacant. Then Matthews stumbled out of the mine, caked with dust and clearly disoriented. The officer approached him, claiming his tag and hanging it up.

  “Matthews,” Captain Mack said, stomping up to the final person to vacate the mine. “You were with the girls. Tell me what happened.”

  “Please, sir, he may require medical attention,” the safety officer said, reaching out to hold the captain back. Before he could touch the man, a familiar cocking sound drew his attention to Coop, pistol once again in hand.

  “Glinda, is this man fit to answer a few questions?” Mack called out.

  His ex-wife and current medic paced over and looked Matthews up and down once. She muttered something and made a dismissive gesture.

  “Tell me what happened,” Mack said.

  “I… I don’t know. There was an explosion,” Matthews said.

  “Where are the girls?” Mack asked.

  “They were in the chamber with the pump. It was nearly finished. They might even have been testing it.”

  “I was terrified this might happen, Captain,” said the harried mayor as he made his way to the scene with labored breath. “Those devices are so difficult to maintain. It must have burst! Safety Officer, what is the situation?”

  “The explosion was in a disused shaft. No miners were inside. There was only Matthews and the two visitors.”

  “We’ve got to assume it was the pump that blew,” Matthews said. “And if they were inside its chamber, we’ve got to assume—”

  There was a second cock of a weapon, this time the captain’s pistol.

  “Until I see what happened with my own eyes, no one is assuming anything. We clear on that?”

  Matthews nodded.

  “Now we’re going in to see to our crew,” the captain said. “Coop, bring Matthews along.”

  The deckhand grabbed a handful of the man’s vest.

  “You can’t just go inside. There has been an explosion. There is tremendous potential for collapse!” the safety officer explained desperately.

  The captain shifted his pistol to the officer. “Well, then you can come along, make sure we’re good and safe.”

  Without waiting for his response, Captain Mack, Butch, Coop, and Gunner marched into the mine, grabbing helmets and fumbling them to flame on the way. The officer followed on their heels, fetching the proper number of tags and catching up. As the group moved deeper into the darkness, the dust in the air became choking, but they simply retrieved kerchiefs and tied them around their mouths, the safety officer deploying a more purpose-built dust mask.

  “You need to keep your eyes and ears open. Any sound of crackling or clattering could be the roof giving way. Look for cracks in the walls and ceiling, splintered beams. And for heaven’s sake put those guns away. If the shaft is compromised, even a loud report could be the last straw and cause a cave-in.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Mack said once more to Matthews.

  “I told you!” the man said, pulling himself free of Coop’s grip and putting a handkerchief to his mouth. “They were with the pump. They may have been testing it. There was an explosion.”

  The group made their way quickly to the site of the explosion. The alcove was largely intact, but the walls of the chamber that the girls had been working in were little more than rubble, and a large section of the ceiling had collapsed, burying the room under at least fifteen feet of jagged stone.

  Coop pointed his gun at Matthews. “Is that where they were?”

  “Yes… I’m sorry, yes…” Matthews replied.

  Coop holstered his weapon and ran to the rubble, heaving and tugging at the first boulder he could reach. It didn’t budge. The safety officer cast the light of his helmet at the ceiling above them.

  “This is bad. A partial cave-in already. We’ve got to get a support crew in here to shore this roof up. And a rescue crew to clear the rubble.” He turned and called to the entrance at a carefully moderated level, to avoid further risk of collapse, “Rescue and recovery. Now.”

  “Coop, leave it,” Mack said.

  “But Lil!” he cried, tears in his eyes. “And Nita!”

  “Nothing you can do cutting your hands up on a stone you can’t move,” the captain said.

  Gunner searched the walls and ground, stopping when he came to the remnants of the door, some distance away. Mack sniffed the air. Gunner did the same. They cast a meaningful look at each other. Gunner then looked to the remains of the door again, leaning low to scrutinize it.

  “Matthews, what’d you hear again?”

  “An explosion.”

  “That’s all you heard. Just an explosion?”

  “That’s all.”

  Gunner nodded and turned back to the door. He planted a foot on it and levered a piece of it free, slipping it into an inner pocket of his jacket.

  “Anyone want to tell me why I’m getting a whiff of fug?” Mack said.

  “It’s shaft seven,” the safety officer said. “There’s a leak near the low point. We decommissioned the shaft before we could deal with it.”

  Mack paced over to the wall and looked over the crumbled edge and the ruptured pipe there. A crew began to file into the alcove with picks, timbers, ladders, and lights.

  “Captain, I must firmly request that you and your crew leave us to our work. When we find your crew, alive or dead, you will be alerted.”

  “You’re going to look into this. What caused it and such,” Mack said. It wasn’t a request; it was an order.

  “All mine incidents are investigated, Captain.”

  “Then I think we’ve got all we’re going to get. Everyone, we’re going back to the Wind Breaker.”

  “Captain, I ain’t going nowhere until they find Lil,” Coop said.

  “Coop, look around you. I’m here, you’re here. Gunner and Glinda are here. There’s no one watching the Wind Breaker. Your first duty is to that ship. Now you will follow orders, understood?”

  Coop and Mack stared each other down for a tense few seconds. “Aye, Cap’n.”

  The crew formed up and filed out, throwing down the tags as they exited. The mayor walked quickly along beside them.

  “Of course you have my deepest sympathies.”

  “Keep ’em,” the captain rumbled.

  “If there is anything the people of Lock can do—”

  “You can find out exactly what happened, and you can find my crew,” he said.

  “Yes, of course. Of course!” the mayor said, falling behind and finally stopping to issue orders to his underlings.

  Most of the town was still clustered around the mine courtyard, parting only to allow the crew through. What few stragglers there were seemed to scatter and disappear into the crowd at the approach of the crew. Before long they were the only ones on the catwalks, moving quickly to their ship. The ladder was still down, an uncharacteristic oversight on the part of Gunner and Butch, the two crewmen who had been aboard at the time of the explosion.

  “Report, now!” Mack bellowed into the ship, his order intended for Wink. “Coop, inside. Full ship check. You find anything alive, you make sure
it doesn’t stay that way.”

  The inspector appeared at the top of the ladder instantly, looking down to the pier while Coop worked his way up. Wink reached down and started drumming at the top rung of the ladder.

  There were men. They had knives. They cut the mooring ropes. They did not finish. The crew came and the men jumped off the pier, Wink tapped.

  Gunner ran to the edge and peered over. He dropped to the planks of the pier and reached underneath, snagging a loose rope and pulling it up.

  “There is a rope tied to the supports under the pier. And someone was definitely working at cutting the mooring ropes,” Gunner said. “If they got under the pier and into the supports for the town, they could be anywhere by now.”

  “All aboard,” the captain said. “This whole situation is wrong. Every last part of it.”

  #

  The crew had gathered in the galley. Mack was standing, leaning heavily on a table with his eyes cast down. The others were also on their feet, looking to him expectantly.

  “I want everyone to listen to what I have to say. Until that rescue crew shows us two bodies, this is still a crew of seven. No one is mourning, no one is seeking revenge. That understood?” he said.

  “Aye, Captain,” was the universal reply, Coop notably more reluctant than the rest.

  “Good. Any of us in our right mind just now probably noticed that nothing about this adds up. I may as well start. Them pipes there on the wall? They were gas lights. Anybody smell any gas?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “No. That place should have been blazing or stinking of gas, and it was neither. Someone could have shut it off after the blast, but we still would have smelled it. So either they had them girls working in the dark, or by the light of them helmets, or someone shut off the gas at the source before the place blew. And that don’t sound like an accident.”

  “That’s not the half of it, Captain,” Gunner said. He pulled the shard of door from his jacket and dropped it on the table. It was the portion of the door containing the lock. “Take a whiff. Does anyone else get a hint of something sharp. Something with a touch of char, and the stink of lamp oil?”