Steal the Sky

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “Watch Captain Leshe, I must speak with you immediately.” His voice sounded like an over-tightened string, wound with anxiety, not anger.

  “Of course, mine master. Please come this way.”

  She led them through the catacomb twists of the station to the cool, quiet confines of her personal office. The captain before her had kept his office toward the front of the station on the second floor, overlooking the central hall so that he could keep a sharp eye on all the comings and goings of the place. Ripka had found the noise too distracting, the stern watchfulness damaging to her team’s morale. Complaints had gone down since she’d moved to the back of the first floor. Maybe she was just too far away for anyone to bother bringing them to her. Either way, it suited her just the same.

  “Would you care to sit?” She gestured toward the fresh chair she’d had brought in after the old one had collapsed beneath poor Banch without warning.

  “Not at the present, captain. I am too distressed by far.”

  Ripka walked behind her desk and opened her drawer to take out a small pad of paper. She sat, dipping her pen, and poised it over the blank sheet, presenting him with the perfect picture of professional calm. Despite the fact she felt like thwacking him on the back of the head and telling him to get on with spilling his worries. “May I make a note of this conversation?”

  “Yes, yes.” He waved a hand and opted for the chair after all, throwing himself down with a thud. “Certain suspicious people have been seen wandering around the Hub, and some young devils have been busy darting about the place spreading unrest. I saw no less than three posters in support of Thratia on my way out of the station this morning, three! If Thratia’s thugs can enter the Hub at any time they like then I fear for my well-being. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “I do, but surely you have your own people to handle this?”

  “Hah! Hardly. They are too worried about upsetting the younger lads by intervening. They fear a strike if they crack down, and I fear my head on a spike if they don’t. Most of all, captain, I worry about the distraction. If the sensitives are busy thinking about this nonsense then they aren’t moving the selium safely and efficiently. Accidents could happen. I would rather have my head on a spike than an accident.”

  She twisted her pen between her fingers, thinking, shunting aside the urge to throw everything she had at this mess to protect Galtro, and to the pits with professionalism. She couldn’t lose him too, not so soon after Faud.

  “I am short-staffed as it is, but I can spare you three personal guards, no more. To keep excitement down, I can explain them as a standard thing for those in the running for the wardenship. But, to do that, I will have to offer the same concession to Thratia.”

  “Fine, very well.” He shrugged. “I doubt she will accept them anyway. And if she does then we will have ears and eyes by her side, eh Leshe?”

  She smiled. “My thoughts exactly. Now, Banch here will assign you your people.”

  Galtro’s eyes flicked to her sergeant, a little crease between his brows. “There’s something else I’d like to speak with you about.”

  Ripka frowned, her mind marching ahead through all the tasks she had yet to complete today. “Will it take long?”

  “It might…” His stern face fell, bushy brows turning inward in disappointment. The expression wrenched at her heart, but she couldn’t comfort him here, even if it meant making him feel as if she were blowing him off. Not now, not with Banch nearby. She trusted her sergeant, of course, but she must seem to be impartial in all things. Especially now that the rule of the city hung in the balance.

  “I am very busy at the moment…” she attempted, willing him to see between her words.

  He leaned forward, placing his palms flat on her desk. “One of my sensitives has gone missing. Good lad. Worked the fourth line. None of his line mates have seen hide nor hair of him in two days. I have no proof of anything, he could just be drunk in a brothel somewhere, but it’s possible…”

  Ripka felt her face twist in a grimace despite her attempt to remain impassive. Galtro sat back, brows raised. “You know of this?”

  “Scrawny lad, pale hair, doorknobs for elbows?”

  Galtro leapt to his feet and slapped a hand upon her desk with enough vigor to rattle her ink well. “That’s him! That must be Feter! Is he injured?”

  With care she laid her pen aside, forced herself to forget that this man who was her friend was about to become very, very angry with her. “It is good to know his name, he hasn’t told it to us. He’s well, if indignant. We arrested him smuggling weapons into Aransa with a known associate of Thratia.”

  The color bled from Galtro’s face, his fingers curled and uncurled at his sides as if he were grasping for something solid to hold onto. Despite her resolve, guilt wormed its way into Ripka’s heart and made her queasy. She leaned forward, trying to look open, understanding. Deliberately she spread her palms out to either side and patted the air. “He’s young, and Thratia’s people can be very persuasive.”

  “I want him released.” Galtro’s words fell like lead, one after the other, offering no room to argue.

  “He was caught in a smuggling operation, mine master, I cannot release him until we discover what he knows.” She flicked her gaze to Banch, who was doing everything he could to look like a blank wall. The boy was on the verge of talking, if they lost him now… It would be hard questions for the woman. Ripka hoped Galtro couldn’t hear the soft waver constricting her throat.

  “I’ll front money against his release, for the good of the city. He is young, watch captain, and if he has anything to say I’ll wring it out of him. But Aransa needs him back on the line. Now. Our production is down as it is, what with one pipe suffering a clog we can’t get clear and the pipe’s so-called investor, Grandon, dragging his feet to get it fixed. We need all hands.” He leaned forward, and this time it was fists he pressed against the desk. “You should have come to me immediately.”

  “There was no way to be certain he was yours,” she said, but the protest was weak and she knew it. Any able-bodied sensitive without a pilot’s imperial contract not working at the Hub was a rogue who should be hauled in and immediately disclosed to the mine master so that they could be put to work. She should have told him. But then, she had known what he would do.

  “Very well. Go with Banch and he will release the young man into your custody. If he tells you anything, Galtro…”

  He waved a hand through the air. “You have to eat sometime. Come by my apartment later tonight, where we can be assured of privacy and better wine. I’ll have everything I can for you by then.”

  “I’ll come by after I’m off duty.”

  Galtro nodded, and Banch ushered the man out. When the door was closed she pressed her palms against her forehead and groaned, not so loud as to be overheard. Without the boy… Banch was right. They needed answers, and the woman had proved taciturn at best. Still, there were other ways. There must be. She would find them.

  Ripka reopened the drawer she had pulled the notepad from and grimaced. Her emergency money pouch was missing.

  Chapter 14

  The absolute first thing Detan did was find a food cart. He stuffed his face with half-burned grit roots and old, unidentifiable meat while Tibs watched, chewing around something wrapped in what looked suspiciously like a leaf. When the rumble in his stomach had settled, Detan slumped back against the wall of a building in the shade of a reedpalm and sighed.

  “May I ask why you were arrested, sirra?”

  He grimaced, dragged back from his contemplation of the gentle breeze and the warm, contented feeling only a full belly can bring. “To make a point, I’m afraid. It was the doppel who dragged me in and the real thing who found me. Those two are dancing round each other like territorial scorpions.”

  “Dancing around you?”

  He winked and waved his arms to take in his whole body. “I am quite the prize, as you can no doubt see.”

  “
Did it occur to you they might be interested in me?”

  “Aren’t you married, Tibs?”

  Tibs scuffed a shoe in the dust. “Only a little.”

  “I’m afraid that’s an all or nothing sort of situation for most women.”

  “Well, it’s only on paper. And I haven’t seen Silka in a year, you really think she isn’t taking care of her needs without me?”

  Detan recalled the stern-faced woman who had nearly gotten him arrested by planting stolen property on him and shuddered. “I try not to think on it…” He trailed off as Tibs’s expression soured.

  “You know, because the very idea of her betraying you is too terrible.”

  Tibs’s brows lifted, two fuzzy worms threatening battle to one another. “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll do me the kindness of pretending you do.”

  Tibs kicked a gnawed animal bone into a trash heap and shrugged. “What now? You get any good eyes on the ship?”

  Detan sucked air between his teeth and nodded. “You’d wet yourself if you saw it, the thing is beauty wrought of plank and sail. The hull is formed like an old trader vessel, with the sel sacks inside of it. Made of half a dozen woods I can’t even identify. Even the tie-ropes are soft as silk, the stabilizing wings made of the supplest leather I’ve ever seen. Softer than the commodore’s hands, that’s for sure. It’s gorgeous, Tibs. Gorgeous.”

  “Well now that we know you’ve proper appreciation for the aesthetics, can we move on to the part where we steal it?”

  “Oh.” He shrugged and pushed away from the wall, wandering down the packed road toward the level-stairs. “When I was arrested we went out the servant’s entrance. Guarded, but not astutely, and before that I kicked one of those delightful little ropes over the edge, so we can get the flier under it and climb on up. I feel you’re rather missing the salient point, however. What was really interesting about last night, Tibs, was the freckles.”

  “The freckles?” Tibs drawled, and Detan got the distinct impression the old goat was humoring him.

  “Indeed. Yesterday morning’s Ripka had none, and yet the real deal at the party was quite spattered with them. And the second Ripka, the one who threw me in the clink, had sprouted freckles as well.”

  Tibs chewed empty air a moment while he thought. “So the doppel must have revised her appearance.”

  “Indeed, and that means she’d seen Ripka in the personal after our encounter and before the party. And guess who was rustling up all of the seventh level poking around for disaffected sensitives of unusual strength?”

  “The watch captain.” Tibs came to a rather annoying halt at the bottom of the level’s steps. “Our rooms are in quite the other direction. Unless you fancy an upgrade?”

  “Oh, come on, Tibs, we’re going to go find that doppel.” He bowed before the steps up to the city and gestured Tibs forward, drawing an irksome glance from the slate-grey uniformed guard posted nearby. Detan frowned. Weren’t all the city guard meant to wear a blue uniform one shade lighter than the Watch?

  “Are you sure about this?” Tibs said, drawing Detan’s thoughts away from the odd guard.

  “Pah, calm down. Ripka intimated that she interviewed every retired sel-sensitive on the seventh. There can’t be that many.”

  “Certainly. But how do you propose we find them?”

  “You can’t have forgotten how this works so quickly. Now hush.”

  “You seem mighty desperate to find this doppel,” Tibs said.

  Detan cringed, remembering the creature’s little trick the night before. As he glanced at his old friend, he imagined his face as if it were a mask, the body belonging to something altogether different. Steal the ship for the doppel, or Tibs gets framed for whatever she has coming. He shivered.

  If he could catch her unawares, then maybe he could change her mind. Maybe he could force her to let him and Tibs just go.

  “You look sick,” Tibs said. “What happened?”

  “Try not to think so hard, old chum, you’ll get more wrinkles.”

  “Sirra.” Tibs stopped cold, hands shoved in his pockets, wiry eyebrows pushed down in annoyance. “Tell me.”

  “We can’t keep the ship,” he blurted.

  “Why?” His voice was almost calm enough to sooth Detan’s frayed nerves. Almost.

  With a muted growl of frustration he dragged his fingers through his hair and tugged. “Listen, Tibs, about last night…”

  While he explained the doppel’s threat, Tibs’s expression soured, his relaxed demeanor giving way to tightened, bunched shoulders and fists clenched so hard Detan could see the bulge in his pockets. When he finished the sordid little tale, Tibs let out a heavy breath and shook his head.

  “We should scamper. We stay much longer, we’ll both lose our tempers.”

  Detan grimaced. “She’ll chase us. I’ve no doubt of that.”

  “Then what?”

  “We find her, and try to make a deal.”

  Tibs grunted, but held whatever retort was coming. They sped up and crossed straight to the seventh level. The locals ignored them as they went about their business, buying bland fruits and leaf-flat breads from the few stalls set up to capture those unwilling to brave the market level below. Detan felt strange in last night’s finery, but then there were a great many people milling about with rumpled hair and twisted collars much like his own. Thratia’s fete, it seemed, had carried on well after he’d been hauled off.

  Detan spotted a slender alley and ducked inside, thinking it a good enough place to keep an eye on the comings and goings. Didn’t hurt that the shade of the high, canted walls was a balm to his sun-tired skin.

  Tibs leaned his back against the dusty alley wall, and Detan was quite surprised to see just how well he blended into the mud brick and black grit. Out in the street, urchin children scrambled back and forth, nimble hands weaving a familiar pattern around the more savory looking denizens. Detan chuckled as one particularly enterprising youth slipped the rings off an older woman’s fingers and skittered off.

  When one drew near, Detan eased himself out of the shadows just enough to be seen and the kid stopped short, his dust-coated face hard and impassive. “Wha’ you want, mister? I don’t do nothin’ perverted.”

  “Nothing like that, young chap.” He knelt down to get a better look at the bony creature and proffered a crust of bread stuffed with the mystery meat and veg. The kid snapped it up and dug in, little jaw working around a cancerous looking bulge. “Just need some information.”

  “What kind?”

  “Residences.”

  “What?”

  “Who lives where, kiddo.”

  His small eyes narrowed. “You looking to bunk a place? That’s Skelta’s territory, I don’t wan’ nothin’ to do with it.”

  Detan shook his head. “We just want to visit someone, no bunking of any kind involved.”

  “I don’ know everyone.”

  “You know the old sel workers? They’ve got more than most, probably good pickings there.”

  He nodded, unwilling to confess outright.

  “Right. So, point their places out to me and it’ll be a silver grain for you.”

  The kid’s eyes bulged. “I’d be beaten to tar, walkin’ round with silver.”

  “I’ll break it into coppers then, so you can hide half.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. Money first.”

  The kid slunk into the alley and Detan handed it over, counting by twos. The kid’s lips worked as he followed along the count, then he stuffed half in one pocket and half in a bag around his neck.

  “Got paper?”

  Detan produced the only paper he had, his filched party ticket, and handed it to the kid who smoothed it flat on the ground. The urchin crouched over the paper, a little nub of charcoal from a fire clutched in his knobby fist, and licked the charcoal tip so that it would draw a darker, finer point. With care he sket
ched out the street and its primary crossroads, drawing right to the edges of the ticket. Then he began to mark little stars in certain spots, putting numbers beside them. When he was done, he jumped up and secreted the charcoal away before dusting his hands on his trouser leg.

  “There you are, mister. Number is the count of doors down from the right, then up.”

  The kid ran off while Detan was still staring open-mouthed at the makeshift map. It was a genius system, the counting pattern, and he was certain it was code amongst the urchin’s fellows. For once, he didn’t feel like he’d overpaid.

  “Clever kid.”

  “You got that right.”

  Detan picked up the map, careful not to smudge the lines. “Well, let’s start with 6-3 here.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Detan gave the first door a rapid one-two-three thump, and it opened almost before he could take his hand back. Bushy brows peered out at him, granite-grey ridges over black-brown eyes.

  “What?” the man grunted, pipe smoke heavy on his breath.

  “Hullo, good sir! We’re visiting with the honored sensitives of the city to inquire about their–”

  “Are you from the Watch?”

  “Er, well, no.”

  “The Hub?”

  “I’m afraid we’re not acquainted with the specifics of–”

  The man spat at Detan’s feet and slammed the door shut. A little wuff of dust wafted onto his face, shaken from the lintel by the man’s over-exuberant use of his portal. Detan coughed.

  “Well, couldn’t have been him anyway.” He brushed dust from his shirt, found it already mingling with his sweat and well on its way transforming into mud.

  “Really? You convinced he doesn’t dress up as the lady watch captain in his off hours?”

  “Mightin’ be that he does, old friend, but he’s still not our creature. I remain convinced that the doppel is a woman. And taller.”