The Calderan Problem (Free-Wrench Book 4)

by Joseph Lallo

  “Fine, set that aside. What about the sea salt? Is there something I’m missing? Is there something about it besides the value?”

  Prist laughed. “Is there? That stuff is nearly as chemically interesting as ichor!”

  “… But it is a seasoning…” Gunner said.

  “The unique flavor—which frankly I’m not overly fond of—is a result of a number of impurities unique to the islands of Caldera.”

  “What sort of things can you do with it?”

  “There some basic medicines I’ve known that make use of trace amounts of some of the extracts from the salt.”

  “Tusk doesn’t strike me as a medically minded fellow. Anything dangerous?”

  “There are some poisons that can be extracted, but nothing nearly as potent as the much more readily available ones.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Only trith.”

  “What has trith got to do with Calderan sea salt?”

  “Like almost anything, trith is just an assortment of simple ingredients combined in the proper ratios utilizing the proper procedures. It is a continuing area of study back at the university to attempt to replicate the remarkable properties of trith. It all comes down to extreme heat and pressure. Both are difficult but not impossible to create in a laboratory scenario. Then there is the missing ingredient. In academic circles we simply call it ‘calderite,’ for lack of a better term. Nothing remotely similar to it has been found anywhere in Rim. But it is present in very small quantities in Calderan sea salt.”

  “… So if you have sea salt, you can make trith?”

  “In theory. In practice any attempts have created a pale substitute at best. You would need massive quantities of salt to make something that might approach Calderan trith.”

  “According to Alabaster, Tusk has been amassing the stuff. If we assume it isn’t a new policy… if we assume the bulk of the sea salt that we’ve brought over during years of trips to Caldera has ended up in his clutches, what could he make with it?”

  “Approximately what quantity of salt are we talking about?”

  Gunner ran some numbers in his head. “On the order of five tons, give or take.”

  Dr. Prist pulled out some notes and scratched out some figures. “Even assuming a very optimistic yield, I don’t think more than twenty pounds or so.”

  “And as far as I know, he wouldn’t be able to reforge the trith that’s come over from Caldera, right?”

  “It is magnificently difficult to reshape trith without compromising its strength.”

  “Twenty pounds of trith… you could forge ammunition out of it, but that wouldn’t make any sense. Trith is light, ammunition is better served by being heavy. There isn’t enough of it to build enough armor to do any good. Twenty pounds of it could make a handful of braces to shore up the rigidity of a ship, but that scarcely seems worth the trouble.”

  “It is very strong and can tolerate extremely high heat,” Dr. Prist suggested. “There is enough of it to build a small boiler. The temperature and pressure such a boiler could manage would be quite remarkable.”

  “Temperature and pressure…”

  “Did something in that strike a chord?”

  “I have been accused of being single-minded, but when the subject of temperature and pressure arises, it always puts me in mind of a bomb.”

  Dr. Prist tipped her head aside and considered the possibility.

  “Yes, I suppose that is enough trith to fashion a casing for a rather sizable and effective bomb. But even a bomb with the intensity one could manage with trith as a component wouldn’t do much more damage than a standard payload of bombs. And one could only drop it once.”

  “Sometimes it only takes one bomb in the right place to set the world on fire. If they were to drop it on Keystone…”

  “It would take a lot less than that to ruin your reputation.”

  “I think, under the circumstances, we can accept the possibility of overreaction.” Gunner raised his voice. “How are we coming with those repair kits?”

  “We’re trying to find another three patch kits and some spare tubing. Five more minutes!” Kent bellowed back.

  “Fresh out of time then,” he said, rising unsteadily to his injured leg.

  “What exactly are you planning to do?”

  “We are going to load down the stolen ship with all the fuel and ammunition we can manage, head off in the direction of the shipyard, and start trying to figure out where the counterfeit Wind Breaker went, assuming it’s already gone, which it most certainly is.”

  “How do you suppose you will find it? It isn’t as though it will have left footprints.”

  “I’ll politely ask the workers of the shipyard.”

  “The last time you set foot anywhere near that shipyard you got a hole in your leg, and they didn’t know you were coming. I’m not a military mind, but even I could predict you’d turn up again after your last clash. They’ll be ready for you.”

  “And I’ll be ready for them. That’s what we call a fair fight, and in a fair fight, I always favor myself.”

  Dr. Prist stood up. “I’m coming with you.”

  “That is unwise.”

  “The entire plan is unwise, Mr. Van Cleef. But if you, in your diminished state, are dead set on executing it, then I intend to be present to offer a sound mind and any aid I might be able to.”

  “Dr. Prist, you do a job here that no one else can. You are too important to—”

  “No, Mr. Van Cleef, I was snatched away from the academy against my will, and one of the things that convinced me to remain here was the freedom that my presence here afforded. Freedom to research. Freedom to act according to my own wisdom, and freedom to leave if I so choose, something that Digger has repeatedly assured me of in my months working here. I intend to exercise that freedom. Besides, I’ve been tinkering a bit with something I thought would interest you, and I would much prefer to be on hand to witness the results.”

  Gunner winced in pain as he walked toward the door. “I don’t have time to argue. So be it.”

  #

  “Can’t you go any faster?” Gunner barked.

  “Only if you don’t mind ending up upside down and surrounded by hounds and squirrels,” said Kent. “There aren’t any roads, if you’ve not noticed.”

  The stolen ship that had just barely remained airborne long enough to carry Gunner and Digger to the edge of The Thicket had required a great deal more repair than he’d realized, and without the skilled hands of Nita, those repairs were slower and less reliable than he’d normally be willing to accept. As it was, he and Kent were on their way back to the ichor well for a second load of supplies, something that even with the better-designed carts was going to cost them a full day round trip.

  That alone would have been enough to put Gunner on edge, but there were also ample signs that the whole of the fug was on high alert. The sounds of airships overhead were nearly constant. A few ships a day was normal. The constant drone of engines, and so low to the ground, could only mean patrols. It was a miracle they’d gotten the holes in the envelope patched in time to keep their stolen ship from being discovered. It would take a half-dozen more miracles to keep the ship from being discovered long enough for them to get moving, and a few more for them to get it far enough away to escape the patrols.

  The cart’s lights fell upon the fortified walls of the Ichor Well facility in the distance, and the doors slowly pulled open as they approached. They didn’t waste a moment, handing out orders for more parts and additional fuel and supplies. Workers snapped to action to fulfill them. Gunner took the time to fetch a bottle of cheap fug whiskey to help dull the pain of his still throbbing leg.

  He leaned heavily on the cart, sipping at the whiskey and impatiently watching crates loaded up. For a surface person like him, drinking in the fug was anything but a casual affair. It required holding one’s breath, tugging the mask aside, sampling the bev
erage, then replacing and clearing the mask. With the inordinate amount of time he’d spent beneath the fug lately, it was almost second nature, leaving his mind to darting in a thousand different directions. In a sudden shock of pain, that wandering mind found something to focus intently on: whatever had decided to climb up his injured leg.

  Gunner looked down to find Ichor Well’s resident inspector, Lardo, clinging to the blood-soaked bandages.

  “Get off of there!” he growled, snatching the portly creature.

  He set Lardo down on the cart.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “There were exactly two aye-ayes I was willing to tolerate. Now there’s exactly one. And it isn’t you. So unless you have a very good reason to be climbing on me, I would get back up that pole and listen for messages if I were you.”

  Lardo tapped out a message on the cart. Message for Gunner. From Wink.

  Gunner’s jaws tightened, but he held his tongue.

  Wink was on the not-real Wind Breaker. The not-real Wind Breaker went to Caldera. The not-real Wind Breaker had Alabaster. The not-real Wind Breaker had heavy purple thing. Wink broke pieces of the not-real Wind Breaker. The not-real Wind Breaker went slow. Gunner owed Wink lots of good food.

  Gunner looked at Lardo with an intensity that caused the aye-aye to shrink away from him.

  “When did this message arrive?” Gunner said.

  Lardo pointed skyward, then tapped: It was now.

  “How did… but I saw him… unless… that sly little rat…”

  Should I responded?

  “No. If he was headed to Caldera, he won’t receive the message anyway. Go. Back to work.”

  Lardo started to crawl away.

  “And Lardo!”

  The inspector turned.

  “Have them give you a whole breadfruit. Tell them I said it was okay.”

  Lardo tapped out his gratitude and scurried off with a bit more excitement, leaving Gunner to consider this new revelation.

  “Heading to Caldera… I was afraid of that… Kent!”

  “Something wrong?” answered the grunt, heaping a sack into the cargo bed of the cart.

  “Good news and bad. Wink is alive…”

  “You said it took a bullet!”

  “We’ll discuss it later. The issue is our mode of transportation. That fug ship is fast, but it burns through fuel. We’ll never make it to Caldera, and we’ve got little hope of finding them with the whole of the sea and sky between Rim and Caldera to hide in. We need a different ship if we’re going to succeed. Something made for searching. Something made for long trips and lots of waiting.”

  “If we don’t have time to hunt for them, we sure don’t have time to do any shopping for new ships.”

  “We’ll have to pick one up on the way.”

  “How are we going to manage that?”

  Gunner scoffed. “The hard part would have been avoiding it.”

  Chapter 10

  Gunner piloted the newly repaired stolen ship with steely resolve. They’d moved with more speed than care, four times ending up in a short but heated pursuit when they drifted too near to a ship patrolling the fug. Even with every inch of space stuffed with cargo, the repaired ship was able to easily outpace anything but a ship of the same class. And for those who could match his speed? Now that he had the space to haul along some of his more choice weaponry, a few quick shots would be all it would take to damage the trailing ship enough to make a getaway.

  Now there was no land in sight. The shore was more than a hundred and fifty miles to the east, giving them all the eerie view of nothing but churning sea below and clear sky above.

  Dr. Prist stepped up to him. She, like most fug folk in a rare visit to the world beyond the fug, had taken measures to protect herself from the bright sun. The wind was playing havoc with a wide-brimmed hat she’d tied on with a ribbon, and she wore the dark lenses so often necessary in her chemical work. She placed a hand on Gunner’s arm.

  He glanced to her. “Doctor, I’d really prefer—”

  “Good heavens, in the circumstances, I think Samantha is more appropriate,” she said.

  “Samantha, I’d prefer if you remained below decks for now.”

  “I’d prefer that too. This view is making my head spin. But given the inadvisable plan you devised, I’d much rather be aware of precisely what is happening and when.”

  “I can respect that.”

  “I don’t suppose there is a chance we’ll encounter the Wind Breaker on its return trip. That would make things a great deal simpler.”

  “That it would make things simpler makes it a near certainty that it will not occur. Captain Mack will keep the ship low to the sea on the return trip, particularly in this stretch of sky. He’ll hide himself in the glare. We’ll never spot him.”

  “Why does he travel in that way?”

  “To avoid trouble.”

  “Which we are not doing.”

  “Correct.”

  “You left a message for him though? In Lock?” she said.

  “I did. With a description of what I believe is the worst-case scenario of the false Wind Breaker’s plans, along with a fresh load of fuel. If we’re lucky, Nita will have given the ship a tune-up. At top speed, with Mack at the wheel, he could make the return trip quite quickly… The timing is going to be very close. This will be the most crowded the Calderan skies have ever been.”

  “Tell me… if we don’t catch the false Wind Breaker before it reaches Caldera…”

  “Which we almost certainly won’t.”

  “…Aren’t the Calderans going to shoot at us?”

  “They would be fools not to.”

  “May I respectfully submit that, in my opinion, that is an aspect of the plan I would prefer we avoid.”

  “Upon that we agree, Doctor.”

  “Samantha.”

  “Of course.” He fetched his rifle sight from this pocket and scanned the horizon. “Tell me something, Samantha. I have been giving this a tremendous amount of thought, and… let me just say I would like to be very certain my concerns are well placed.”

  “What is it?”

  “The cask of ichor that’s been loaded aboard the false Wind Breaker. I would judge that to be… on the order of one hundred gallons. How much fug could that produce?”

  “The ichor-to-fug yield is extremely variable.”

  “What causes it to vary?”

  “Primarily temperature. The higher the temperature reached, the more fug produced.”

  “And if that cask were to be dropped into the mouth of a volcano?”

  “Well, naturally the heat would be enormous… and thus the yield.”

  “Enough to kill all the people on the island of Tellahn?” Gunner asked.

  Her eyes darted as the figures worked themselves out in her head.

  “I think not.”

  “No?”

  “The quantity might be enough, but it would spread quite slowly. There would be time to evacuate. I’ll admit to not knowing much of Caldera, but if the volcano is as large as I suspect, then its… well, its caldera would be considerable in size. It would need to fill, then overflow.”

  “And that wouldn’t happen quickly?”

  “It is actually quite fascinating, but not very quickly at all. The cask would burn through and spill its contents. Then the ichor in contact with the surface would flash to phlogiston, pyrum, and fug. The rest of the ichor would dance across a pillow of these gasses. Insulated from the worst of the heat. It was a tremendous discovery of mine, you see, and…”

  Gunner held up a hand. “Not to be rude, but there is another element to this equation.”

  “Ah. And it is?”

  “We’ve discussed the construction of a bomb utilizing the trith they may have been able to produce. What if—”

  “What if the trith was used as a casing for the ichor… Yes… Yes of course. That would change matters significantly. T
he ichor would be kept in contact with the heat for much longer. The fug and phlogiston would build up pressure quickly, and both with enormous yield. The trith would hold it for quite while. And then the pyrum… when the trith finally ruptured, the blast would be monumental. Fug would be spread for miles all around. The caldera would be damaged, it wouldn’t be able to contain any fug that isn’t launched away. The fug would pour down, thick and fast. From the highest point in the island. There would be no escaping it… The blast might even fracture enough of the mountain to start the lava flowing…”

  “That is what I was afraid of.”

  “Even still. Terrible though it is, there would still be survivors. The blast would scatter at least a third of the unconverted ichor away from the heat. There would be more instantaneously, but less overall. Huge casualties, but there would be survivors.”

  “Yes… There would have to be… No sense in doing it otherwise.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “What has allowed the Wind Breaker crew to achieve its fame, infamy, and success of late?” Gunner asked.

  “I imagine your association with Nita and, by extension, the Calderans has been a part of it.”

  “And if you wanted to destroy all that we’d achieved, the first step would be to destroy our partnership with Caldera.”

  “And so they send a Wind Breaker to attack Caldera.” She nodded. “And it is the perfect job for Alabaster. The false Wind Breaker would certainly be destroyed in the attack, but Alabaster is a man who has already proved that his infamy is more important to him than his life. And there must be survivors to spread the word of the terrible deed so that you will never be allowed back.”

  “Nor will anyone else. And I would be very surprised if things didn’t progress further. Caldera would be well within its rights to declare war. Something they are presently terribly underequipped for. It would be devastating.”

  “It is a brilliant plan… My heavens. I don’t even want to think of the sort of mind who would conceive of such a thing.”

  Gunner raised his sight again. “Then I have good news. The distraction we are waiting for is here.”

  She glanced into the distance. A dark spot on the horizon produced a handful of smaller spots. All were moving quickly toward their stolen ship.