The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition

by Rich Horton

  “I saw three deckhands,” said Mr. Fuille at last.

  “Two,” said Moon, as he watched the scientist’s ashen fingers tap a beat on the railing. “Cally is steersman. Tomasch and Alban are more—everything-hands.”

  “A very small crew for a vessel of these specifications. Possibly the minimum required for compliance with the Poorfortune People’s Aviation and Elevation Cargo and Vessel Handling Code, which being declared by the port of destination is, I must accept, the applicable document. But I observed no weatherfinder. It specifically says in the Imperial and Transcontinental Standards and Accord that—”

  “—and this is where we keep him,” said Moon, pointing to his showpiece. In truth the storeroom was the size of a coffin, but the blue regulation-issue weatherfinder jacket was artistically draped over a hook on the door. “I’m afraid he is somewhat, er, under the weather. As they say. Landsickness. He’ll return to us shortly. You said you were anxious to make good time?” He shepherded Fuille back to the single passenger cabin at the rear of the Hyssop, already crowded with Fuille’s luggage (elegant and extensive luggage, viewed beside the canvas ditty bags and matildas the crew had slung across from the docks). Having installed his passenger there, Moon stepped onto the dock to sign, with Cally, the last forms standing between the Hyssop and freedom.

  From this spot, he surveyed his little ship. The canvas and rubber of her gas cushions was striped red and yellow. He had painted the hull garish black and red, with long blue luck-eyes on the sides. The figurehead, which held a heavy lantern suspended by chains from her hands, was picked out in mercilessly lifelike colours.

  Moon looked at her with love. Underneath the paint and canvas, for those who had eyes to see, she had the bones of an elegant and venerable vessel, the soul of a more romantic age. Only the knowledge of the passenger sitting like a canker in the cabin dulled his pride in the Hyssop.

  “If you ever gaze at a woman like that, dear Captain, I’ll eat my hat,” said a merry voice from above.

  “That would be a shame, Eliza,” said Moon. He looked up. She was leaning over a railing, on her way to the highest level of the docks. From where he stood Moon could see the sleek curve of the Orient, the long, swift cruise-ship on which she had a berth. “It is a very smart hat.”

  “And that,” conceded Eliza, touching one gloved hand to her hair, “is a particularly stylish paint job. Your taste is remarkable, the more so considering your, ah—finances, my poor Captain. You should have been a pirate.”

  “There is time yet,” said Moon. “Besides, ‘no man is poor or alone who owns a ship.’ ”

  “Or otherwise acquires one.”

  Moon added as an afterthought, “You, of course, are always welcome aboard. The boys took a liking to you. We’re taking the direct route—I will arrange a thrilling voyage for your readers.”

  “The colours would clash with my dress,” said Eliza. “Besides—” she broke off with pointed tact.

  “I told you, the Hyssop can make the voyage, easily. She was flying before they ever thought of making your fine cruise ships. I’ll wage we’ll have a smoother trip.”

  Eliza tossed her head. “I was going to say, you couldn’t afford me.”

  “You take payment for favourable reviews?” he asked.

  “It would take payment to get a favourable review of that tub,” said Eliza. “It’s no pleasure-craft. Get me a good story one day, Captain Moon, and a ship that’s steadier on the stomach, and maybe I’ll fly with you. Till then, find me in Poorfortune, for I have news to tell you when you get there.”

  “I’ll race you,” said Moon rashly.

  Eliza went on up, laughing.

  “News of what?” he shouted up, after a moment.

  “It will keep!” Eliza called back, and then the next platform of the dock tower hid her from his sight.

  On the second day out from Port Fury, and already well clear of the sea-ports and land, the Hyssop caught a bitterwind. Ice crackled on the rails and glass shieldings, and vanished again like smoke. The ship had been designed to sail with the wind, and refitted by previous owners to be propelled by modern power and manned by a very small crew, currently made up of Cally and his sons. Moon, who believed that sense, experience and attention would beat an academy-trained weatherfinder any day, and cost less, was standing at the tiller, planning further renovations and contentedly watching the sky through the glass dome of the steering deck when Mr. Fuille flushed out the stowaway.

  The sounds of pursuit began below Moon’s feet, became accompanied by the cries of Tomasch and Alban, rose up through the bowels of the Hyssop and spilled onto the deck. The steersman remained carefully deaf, and there were no shouts of fire or leakage, so Moon waited until the tumult died. Then he tucked his unlit pipe into the pocket of his fur-lined coat, regretfully handed the tiller over to Cally, and wandered out to see what had caused the fuss.

  Mr. Fuille, his face greyer than usual, his shoulders hunched against the cold, confronted Moon amidships. “I am a Level 7 Scientist,” he said. “Their Majesty’s Government will not be at all pleased to know that my cargo was being rifled through by ship’s rats!”

  “Rats?” said Moon.

  “Vile, vagabond—” said Fuille, beginning to sputter.

  “Ah,” said Moon.

  Tomasch was leaning over the side, a gloved hand raised against the swirl of ice-air which peeled around the wind shields. Moon joined him. For a moment his attention was caught and whipped away by the wind, the vast blue sphere of the empty world in which the ship hung suspended. Then he saw a flutter of cloth disappear around the curve of the hull.

  “Over the side!” Fuille choked. “The cowardice—Their Majesties’ Government—”

  “What Their Majesties’ Government doesn’t know won’t hurt it,” said Moon thoughtfully. He turned to Mr. Fuille. The scientist did not improve the view. “Hazard of shipping. But the problem has gone. Disposed of itself. Short duration. Remarkably.”

  “Send your men after him!”

  “To what end?” said Moon, noting the alarm of Alban, who had not inherited his family’s head for heights.

  “There has been a violation of Government property!” said Mr. Fuille, his grey eyes protruding. He shook with anger or cold, and his skin was chalky. “My experiments are delicate, carefully calibrated. If your crew has been nurturing a stowaway—”

  “Get something for Mr. Fuille to drink,” Moon told Tomasch. “And get him a warmer coat.” When they had gone into Fuille’s cabin, Moon stood scratching his jaw. He looked at the clear sky (such a warm dark blue in spite of the ice) and the indicator flags all fluttering stiffly as they should, then went to his own small cabin, set at the front of the little ship. He opened the shutters over one round window. Through the uneven glass he could see sky, ropes, chains, billowing gas cushions, sky again and then the upswept arms of the figurehead, holding out the unlit lantern to where the endless blue arched into oblivion.

  Moon ran a careful calculation of time and infrastructure in his mind, then opened the next shutter along and forced open the window itself. It slammed against the timbers with a report like a gun, and the ice wind poured in.

  Moon, pleased, glimpsed the stowaway crouched behind the figurehead, clinging to the iced ropes and staring out into the void. He closed his own eyes against the blinding cold and, climbing half out the window in spite of his bad leg, reached down, seized a double handful of hair and shirt and hauled the stowaway back aboard.

  Someone hammered heavily on the cabin door, but Moon ignored the noise and frowned down at stowaway who sat on the bed, wrapped in Moon’s blankets. He suspected she was the young woman he had met in Port Fury, although the windburn was new, as was the ancient coat which had replaced her brother’s jacket.

  “That was a foolish thing to do,” he said, conversationally. He had succeeded in pouring a quarter of a bottle of brandy into her before she’d revived enough to protest, and he didn’t think she’d been out in th
e bitterwind long enough to lose any fingers.

  “Getting thrown over the side?” she asked, indistinctly. Her eyes were closed and her lips chapped and bleeding.

  “Not even pirates throw stowaways over the side,” he said bracingly. “Not without enquiries. You’re lucky you didn’t fall. Unless you were frozen there?”

  “I was going to jump,” she said.

  “Unnecessary, and a long way down. Keep your eyes closed, I can’t get anything to put on them until I go out on deck, and I’m not inclined to yet.”

  “At first I was terrified of falling,” the woman went on, “and then the wind cut through me. I could hear it in my head and my bones, howling inside them, and I thought, I won’t fall, the wind will bear me up. I think I went a little mad.”

  “That implies you were sane to begin with,” said Moon.

  “Will I be blind?” she asked.

  He shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see him. “With luck, the ship and the figurehead between them cut the worst of the wind.”

  “Captain!” roared Mr. Fuille, outside the door. “I know you are in there.”

  “Lie down,” said Moon. He pushed her back onto the narrow bed and draped his handkerchief over her face. “Try to look like you have a headache.”

  “Everything aches.”

  “It won’t be hard then,” said Moon. “Come in, Mr. Fuille,” he added grandly, unlatching the door. “Please try to be considerate.”

  “Considerate!” exploded Mr. Fuille. “I will have you know—Who is that?”

  “Evan Arden,” improvised Moon. Livid spots stood out on the scientist’s cheeks and brow. “Ivana Arden,” Moon amended. “My weatherfinder.”

  “I received the distinct impression your weatherfinder was a man,” said Mr. Fuille.

  “You would be surprised at the prejudice one still encounters,” said Moon.

  Mr. Fuille narrowed his eyes and swelled slightly. “Women have not been admitted into the Academy for a sufficiently extensive period of time to permit any graduate to have acquired the experience necessary to inspire confidence!”

  “As you say,” said Moon mildly.

  Fuille took a deep breath, then demanded, “What was your weatherfinder doing in my cargo?”

  “Probably looking for brandy. Not to worry, I’ve dosed her up and she’ll be herself in a few hours.” The stowaway groaned convincingly.

  “A weatherfinder should not be drinking on duty,” said Fuille. “The third amendment to the Navigator’s Ordinance—”

  Moon wanted to say, “You’re just making up legislation now,” but merely shrugged. “Old air dog, new tricks, no harm done.”

  Fuille glared at Moon, whose heart sank at the scientist’s next words. “I will be giving information to their Imperial Majesties’ Ambassador and the Poorfortune Aerial and Aerostat Governance Department when we dock.”

  When Fuille was gone, Moon stepped out to inform the steersman of the addition to their crew. When he returned to the cabin, his stowaway lifted a corner of the handkerchief and regarded at him foggily. “Well, one of us is lucky,” said Moon. “I thought I was buying an empty coat.” Then he sighed and looked regretfully at his pipe. “I also hoped to get to Poorfortune unremarked, Ivana.”

  “That’s not my name.”

  “It is until we get to port,” he said and put his pipe between his teeth. “You’ll have to act like a weatherfinder.”

  “I’ve never been taught how!”

  “I’m not asking you to read the winds. I can do that as well as any academy-approved wind-vane. Just—prance around and pretend to make calculations. Act like your brother.”

  “Evan’s a very good weatherfinder,” she said angrily.

  “Then he should be able to take care of himself. Which of all the blue devils made you pull a trick like this, anyway?”

  “You were going to Poorfortune,” she said, and put the handkerchief back over her eyes. “That’s the last place anyone heard Evan was going.”

  “You would have been more comfortable on the cruise ship,” said Moon.

  “Your security was worse,” said Ivana.

  Moon thought of his crew and conceded this. “What ship was your brother on?”

  “The Ravens,” said now-Ivana. She touched the wall of the cabin as she spoke. Moon had run out of paint, and the walls here wore their original colour. Her fingernails—short for a lady’s, although her hands were uncalloused—caught on the grooves where fine copper wires were still set into the wood.

  “This is the Hyssop,” said Moon quickly. “No one’s seen The Ravens for a year or more.”

  “I know,” said Ivana from underneath the handkerchief. “I’m not the only person looking for it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Moon.

  Ivana paused before she spoke. The silence was filled by the throb of engines, and Tomasch shouting instructions to his brother. “That grey man is looking for it too,” she said. “I heard him mention it when the cargo was being loaded. And there were papers in the boxes he brought. Records and schematics.”

  Moon winced. He didn’t want Government trouble. “I’ll kick you both off in Poorfortune,” he said. “You can look for it together.”

  “I don’t like him,” said the woman. She took the handkerchief off her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t told him my name was Arden.”

  “And I wish you hadn’t stowed away on my ship,” said Moon, but he was even less fond of the idea that Fuille had some connection with The Ravens. The sudden acquisition of this extra passenger, with less ship-sense than Alban, did not unsettle him as much as that.

  “So your brother was—is a weatherfinder,” he mused.

  “A trained one.” She turned to the wall. He could see her shoulder blades sharp under her ragged coat. Her fingers traced the lines in the timbers where the wires lay.

  “They don’t make the other kind anymore,” said Moon with a smile, but she gave no indication of amusement.

  Moon sighed. He preferred conversations with people who gave as they got. He would look up Eliza when they reached port.

  “What do you do when you’re not hitching rides to Poorfortune, Ivana?”

  “I work in a doctor’s surgery,” she said.

  “You’re a secretary?”

  Ivana made a noncommittal sound.

  “I don’t need a secretary,” said Moon. “It’s a small ship. Everyone needs to be useful.”

  “Even the scientist?” asked Ivana.

  “He pays our way,” said Moon. “Do you know anything about ships?”

  “My family traditionally avoids the ports,” she said loftily.

  “Well, do you do anything useful? Can you cook? Otherwise I’m going to have to put you out the front again.”

  “No!” said Ivana, grasping his arm. “Wait, look.” She rolled back and struggled to sit upright, then leaned against the wall.

  “If you pass out, I’ll use you for ballast,” said Moon, freeing himself from her grasp.

  “I work with doctors. I learn quickly. I know a few things—surely I can be useful. You have a habit of injuring yourself.” She made a quick gesture towards his leg and Moon, who prided himself on his ease of walking, was hurt that she had noticed.

  “The question is,” said Moon, “Can you act?”

  “I learn quickly,” she repeated. “I’ll play your weatherfinder, Captain, and I’ll fix injuries if I can, but don’t make me stand in the wind. When I was out there, it went through me as if I were made of flags, and all my nerves and organs were flying away. That frightened me more than falling.”

  Moon had felt the summer breezes and the bitterwinds, but they had never cut through him in such a way, and he envied Ivana.

  “Well, don’t tell Fuille that,” he said at last.

  Ivana, tidied, stood in the corner of Moon’s cabin. He had helped her back into the too-large blue coat, and rolled one sleeve so that the ink would dry on her arm. “Fuille is particular,” said M
oon, setting down the pen and stoppering the ink bottle. He kept hold of her wrist and turned back to blow on the ink. Her fingers twitched. “All weatherfinders I’ve seen have tattoos,” he continued. “I don’t want him to notice anything odd and cause more trouble before I get him to Poorfortune.”

  “And after that?” asked Ivana. “He will notice, if he hasn’t already.”

  “Notice what?” asked Moon, releasing her arm and putting the ink away.

  “That under the paint there are ravens carved all over this ship. And I’ve seen what’s left of the older paintwork, here and below decks. It’s . . . telling.”

  “All ships have histories,” said Moon, cleaning the pen. The ship lurched in a sudden gust and the captain swayed against his desk.

  “And the figurehead should be beautiful, and pale,” continued Ivana, adjusting to the turbulence as if it were a summer wind. “It’s made of bone and ivory, did you know that?” She gestured to the books and charts in the cabin, the carved tobacco pipes, the creditable botanical tracery of a hyssop stem which he had drawn on the inside of her arm. “But I’m sure you did. You like beautiful things. You wouldn’t have painted that figurehead like a dockside . . . like that, if you didn’t have a very good reason. Did you steal this ship? Are you a pirate?”

  “Not yet,” said Moon. “Just lucky. But she is, as you said, a very beautiful ship, and old. This era of ships—well, they aren’t around much any more. They were built to respond to every change in the weather, and a fine degree of understanding of it, and that doesn’t suit modern methods. She wallows under engines, but she would have been fast in her youth. She could be again, with a true weatherfinder on board.”

  “But you don’t have one,” said Ivana.

  “I live in hope that can be remedied,” said Moon, settling back and filling his pipe using long deliberate fingers.

  Ivana, still holding her inked arm away from her side, walked easily around the cabin, studying the charts with a gaze both intelligent and bewildered. “I thought the journalist said you didn’t like weatherfinders, but there’s always the academy. These maps are the same territory at different heights, are they not? They’re very handsomely drawn.” She traced a pattern of weather-currents thoughtfully.