by Beth Cato
Ingrid left her pack on the floor and clambered onto a small box, and then another, moving upward. Her legs ached but remained steady.
“Pardon my saying so, Lee, but you don’t exactly have an advantage in your negotiations,” said Cy.
“No denying that.” Lee’s grin was cold enough to make Ingrid shiver as if she’d brushed a ghost. At this distance, he looked like the Lee she had known for ages, and yet a stranger. “But I know what Roosevelt really wants, and I can make it happen.”
Ingrid climbed as high as she could. The view was incredible, a vast topography of hills and valleys, all formed of freight. “Ambassador Roosevelt!” she called.
“I see her!” His voice boomed out.
She found him working his way through the maze. Alongside him was the tall form of Siegfried, with more of his devoted men following closely behind. As they passed through an open space, she saw Fenris as well. He looked irate, undoubtedly fuming at Roosevelt for forcing him away from the Bug a second time. Ingrid remained on her perch until the men were close before scooting down to rejoin Cy.
Only Lee and Uncle Moon remained by the fox’s corpse. The other Chinese men had retreated into the freight maze. God help them all. This could get ugly fast.
“Miss Carmichael.” Mr. Roosevelt’s grin was not as exuberant as usual. “I did not expect to find your wayfaring airship docked here.”
“Mr. Roosevelt.” She offered him a slight curtsy. “I didn’t expect to meet you here either. I assumed Ambassador Blum would accompany the incoming fleet. Instead, she was already here.” At that, Ingrid made a showman’s gesture and stepped aside, affording them a view of the dead fox with multiple tails.
“It can’t be,” muttered Siegfried.
“Oh, it can,” said Roosevelt, expression more thoughtful than surprised. “The rings don’t offer immortality, after all. All it takes is the right tool, be it a failing heart or an ancient weapon.” He took in the sight of Lee and the strange pole arm without any fear. “Mr. Fong. It has been a while.”
“It has.” Lee’s voice was soft yet strong. “Ambassador Roosevelt, I’m here to negotiate on behalf of the Chinese people.”
“Negotiate? Negotiate for what? Possession of Excalibur?”
“Yes. That and more.”
Roosevelt snorted. “I’m afraid you’re delusional, Mr. Fong.”
“Hope is a kind of delusion.” Lee shrugged.
“Even if you could crew this technological marvel and monstrosity, the war with China is at an end. Killing her can’t undo that.” Roosevelt motioned to the dead fox.
“You’re right. We can’t change the past. The Chinese, as a people, have lost this war. We have lost our homeland, our identities, our clothing, our culture. But you, sir, aren’t simply focused on this war, but the next. The one against Japan.” Roosevelt studied Lee with narrowed eyes as he continued, “You know that conflict will come. The invasion is already under way. I’ve heard you discuss that with Mr. Sakaguchi, time and again. There will come a time when America will either be absorbed as another imperial dominion, or will be forced to fight once more for its independence. We can help you win that fight.”
“How?” The word was blunt.
“By existing. We can be the splinter that Japan can’t dig free from its flesh. We can be proof of their failure.”
Roosevelt considered this. “You truly wish for me to let Excalibur stay in your possession? Preposterous. You would use it against us.”
“Define ‘us,’” retorted Lee. “I was born in San Francisco. I’ve never been outside of America. I don’t want to fight America unless I’m forced to do so in defense. What I want is for China to be free—and for America to be free, too.”
Ingrid could scarcely breathe. This was what Roosevelt wanted most—to break the Unified Pacific from within, to allow America to achieve its manifest destiny on its own terms.
“You propose an alliance, even as your people face annihilation.”
“I have heard you say yourself that we’re all children of God.”
“I’m well aware of what I say,” snapped Roosevelt. “And what I believe.”
Ingrid looked between the men, and to the surrounding crates. The other Chinese men would attack at the slightest signal. They surely knew it’d be suicide, but they would never submit to captivity. Lee mentioned they had been setting up explosives, too.
“How much kermanite do you have handy?” she murmured to Cy.
“A pocketful.”
Good. She could get to that faster than the contents of her pack.
“The death of the fox—Ambassador Blum—changes the balance of power among the Twelve.” Roosevelt walked toward the body. No one else moved. Tension crackled in the air like electricity. He stooped to pull the band from the fox’s leg. As he held up the piece of jewelry, it reverted to being a ring again, its power still subdued. He tucked the ring in his jacket pocket.
Ingrid looked sidelong at Uncle Moon and wondered what terrible cost T.R. had paid for donning his own ring.
As Roosevelt stood, he picked up Cy’s hat as well. He walked back toward them and passed along the hat to Cy, who accepted it with murmured thanks. “You would use this citadel as your refuge.”
Lee’s gaze was wary. “Yes. I request that any Chinese who are willing to leave America be allowed to do so without harassment.”
“And those who cannot be accommodated aboard? Or who don’t wish to leave?” Roosevelt asked.
“We’ll need to engage in an ongoing dialogue regarding other Chinese people in America. Continuing to imprison them for ‘their own safety’ isn’t acceptable.”
“I agree, but there are still many problematic elements to your plan. Like how I could possibly explain how and why I let you simply fly away.” He fluttered his hands like butterfly wings. “Especially when the scourge that is killing thousands of people at this very moment is likely Chinese in origin. Hmm?” Roosevelt’s gaze was as sharp as a knife. Lee and Uncle Moon shared a look. “You have some nerve, Mr. Fong, some nerve indeed to propose that I give you this war machine, that we ally ourselves.” His face flushed.
The men stared each other down.
“Mr. Roosevelt, sir,” interrupted Ingrid. “We have discovered new information ourselves in recent days. In Los Angeles, there’s a hidden Chinese laboratory that contains an immunization against this contagion. We freed Mr. Sakaguchi from captivity yesterday, and he’s flying to California as we speak. He’s going to connect with your contacts there and lead them to the lab.”
“Ah, so the Chinese immunized themselves, did they? Bully for them!” T.R. looked even angrier than before.
“Mr. Roosevelt, you should know we—” Lee began, only to be interrupted by Uncle Moon. They argued until Lee seemed to snap, smacking the butt of the guandao against the floor. An ethereal thunderclap resounded through the broad chamber and made Ingrid’s ears pop. Lee himself looked shaken for a mere second, but he regained his bearings to face down Roosevelt.
“Sir, you should know that this virus was engineered by Japanese scientists in Manchukuo. It was utilized against the Chinese people when they were at their most vulnerable, in the aftermath of the Peking earthquakes. We assumed the sickness was natural until late February, when one of the Japanese laboratories was discovered.”
Roosevelt went utterly still. “This was a Japanese innovation?”
“Yes, sir. It’s our understanding that, at minimum, elite Japanese soldiers and the nobility have been immunized, but programs are ongoing to treat the larger Japanese populace as well, especially in newly colonized areas.”
“Few Chinese people have traveled abroad of late,” said Cy. “If this started in Atlanta, right as Excalibur was setting off, the culprit was likely Japanese.”
“Yes, yes,” Roosevelt murmured. “Many Japanese officials and soldiers flew into Atlanta for the unveiling. With that many people gathered together, no wonder the virus has spread as it has! But you are still culpa
ble for holding this immunization secret and—”
Ingrid burst out laughing. Roosevelt stared at her, almost bug-eyed in rage. “Listen to yourself, sir. What did you expect them to do? Sentiments against the Chinese have been outright violent for months, and far worse since the San Francisco earthquake. They couldn’t simply walk up to a soldier and say, ‘Pardon me, here’s an immunization for an illness that has ravaged people in China and it might spread here, too.’ They’d be blamed as the source. Good God, I blamed them for it based on the evidence I’d seen.”
Lee nodded. “We figured it was only a matter of time until the sickness spread here. All we could try to do is protect our own.”
“We can supply names, addresses, of Japanese scientists in Manchukuo,” said Uncle Moon, his grudging voice like wheels on gravel. “Also the locations of mass graves. American scientists can identify that the viral strain is the same.”
“Thank you, Dr. Moon,” said Roosevelt. Ingrid wasn’t surprised he recognized the tong leader. The ambassador’s gaze rested on the dead fox. “This sounds like one of her projects. Did she truly think she could hide a weapon this . . . virulent?”
“Yes,” snapped Fenris. He had cleaned up his face, but his nose had swollen, distorting his voice. “And she apparently did quite a good job of it since the Peking quakes happened in January and it’s now late May.”
Roosevelt was quiet for a moment as he took in everything. “The newspapers keep boasting about the power embodied in Excalibur, but I think they forget that they are the ones embodying it with its greatest might, that of a symbol. Not simply of America’s brilliance and glory, but of its future. A future based on trade, compromise, and independence. For all of our people.”
No one moved. Everyone seemed afraid to even breathe.
“We have many details to discuss,” Mr. Roosevelt continued, tone brisk. “The dead on board must be attended to. Any living A-and-A soldiers must be found and provided with medical treatment in preparation for quarantine. That fox must be destroyed. The issue looming over everything, of course, is the story to explain the whole affair. We can credit Japan with manufacturing the illness that devastated Excalibur’s crew, but losing custody of the vessel over American soil reflects poorly on us.”
“If you’re creating the narrative, control it in every way,” said Ingrid. “Publicize the illness that occurred aboard. Say you’re bringing another crew here, when in truth you’re smuggling out as many Chinese as possible. The citadel can bypass Los Angeles and fly onward over the Pacific. Find some excuse why. The gunships could even continue to supply an escort, up to a point, to keep the curious away.”
“We would need to coordinate the departure of the gunships and the timing of the revelation about Japan’s role behind the contagion,” Roosevelt mused. “Then there is the matter of the war and how it will resume. Mr. Fong, I won’t believe any assertions that this will remain a Utopian floating island for refugees.”
“I have no intention of lying to you. We’re going to fight to regain China. However, it’s my hope that we won’t be battling the Unified Pacific as we work toward that goal.”
“Mr. Roosevelt, sir, how many American civilians are estimated dead by this virus at this time?” Cy asked. “I hesitate to believe the hyperbole in the papers.”
“In this case, believe. Reports state fatalities range as high as seventy percent among those infected, and it’s striking down many young adults of otherwise high vitality, not simply the very old and very young.” Roosevelt’s face reflected grief. “I’ve prayed for America to stand alone as an independent power, but I never would have wished for the schism with Japan to come about in such a way.”
That many dead. Ingrid could not even imagine the numbers involved.
“Then we have come to a tenuous agreement?” Lee asked, extending a hand. Roosevelt hesitated only a moment, as if surprised to see such an American gesture. Their hands met with a small clap.
“Will you now call your other men out from where they have obscured themselves among the freight?” asked Roosevelt. It figured that he knew he had walked into a potential ambush.
“Yes,” said Lee. “They’ll set down their arms for now.”
“I imagine you will not be relinquishing that, however.” Roosevelt eyed the guandao with blatant curiosity.
“Sir.” Siegfried coughed.
“Ah, yes, my men are unsettled by your weapon. That’s part of their job.” He waved a hand in dismissal of their concern. “I think it’s rather refreshing to be near a weapon that can kill me. Comforting, I would even say.” His voice softened.
“The thought of immortality frightens me more than mortality,” said Lee, his tone similar. The two men—men, not man and boy—regarded each other, an understanding met without words.
The soft tintinnabulation of bells rang throughout the hold. Ingrid suddenly smelled Cy’s leather jacket as if her face pressed against him in a hug, though he didn’t wear the heavy garment now.
She smiled at him, and caught him smiling right back.
“I smell that fine stew you were toting about that first day we met,” he murmured. “And I can’t help but think of when we stood together by the bookshelf in your home, and how delighted I was to converse about Twain with such a beautiful woman.”
“A woman who’d almost shot you a short while before,” she murmured. He waved that off as a minor detail. Together, they turned to look at the source of the chimes.
The qilin stood on the crate top where Ingrid had called out to Roosevelt. She heard soft cries behind her as the Chinese men reacted to the presence. She didn’t turn around. They required privacy. To her, the qilin was a fascinating celestial entity; to them, the qilin was that, and so much more.
She lowered herself to her knees and bowed; Cy did the same beside her.
“Thank you,” she murmured, voice thick.
“My thanks to you, Ingrid Carmichael.” The qilin’s voice carried the smoothness of strummed harp strings. “I wish for you to find peace upon a mountain of your own.”
The profound emotional weight of the statement brought tears to her eyes. She wanted to say more, but her tongue was too clumsy to manage speech. She mouthed the words “thank you” again and rose with the help of her hands.
The qilin’s thickly lidded eyes focused on Lee and Roosevelt, who were likewise prostrated before the golden entity haloed in unburning flames. By their soft murmurs, she knew a private conversation was under way.
“I’ll be damned. It actually talked to me this time,” said Fenris from a few feet away. “I thanked it for not incinerating my airship. The qilin laughed.”
At that, Ingrid gawked at Fenris. “I didn’t know it could laugh.”
He shrugged. “It’s a heavenly entity that promotes peace and prosperity, right? I’d expect it to laugh and smile much of the day.”
Ingrid looked back at the qilin. Its head tilted, just a touch, to meet her gaze directly. A new sense of solace flowed over her like a waft of fresh-from-the-oven sourdough bread, and then the qilin was gone.
The vacuum left by its departure resonated as if they had all abruptly awakened from a beautiful, soul-deep dream. The other men, even Roosevelt’s lackeys, were left stammering and stumbling with tears in their eyes.
Fenris stepped closer. “It’s good to see you two survived. You do look . . . tired, Cy.”
“Blum yanked away part of his life force. He’s doing better than he was.” Even so, she twined her arm with his. The extra power she held could still come in handy.
“This is no time to rest. We need to find the survivors, help with the dead. They can’t bring on other soldiers to do it.” Cy looked weary to the marrow.
“Suddenly, being immune doesn’t sound so pleasant,” muttered Fenris. He absently touched his nose, then flinched.
Ingrid felt sick at the thought of what they must do aboard, but she nodded. This needed doing. She had to get to the citadel hospital, in any case. That was w
here Maggie had died. If she was anywhere near as tenacious as Cy, perhaps her ghost could be found there. The twins might still have their reunion, and just maybe, peace.
That’s what they all needed. Peace.
“I promised you world peace, back on that day we first met,” she murmured to Cy. “I never thought it would come to this, for China to have its chance at survival, but for America and Japan to be drawn into conflict instead.”
Cy leaned into her, a gesture not entirely inspired by affection. He needed help to stand. “That conflict would have happened no matter what we did. Blum made sure of that. Only now, the war won’t happen on her schedule.”
Ingrid nodded, her eyes drawn to the fox’s body again. “From here, she looks so normal. You can’t even see her tails. You can’t see the horrors she created.” Ingrid looked to her hand, her fingers twined with Cy’s. She didn’t look noteworthy either. Most of society would dismiss her with a quick glance at her skin, classify her as a servant, a maid, a nobody, yet she had also contributed to her own share of horrors.
She had strived to do good works, too. To be kind, to be merciful, to forgive. She wasn’t defined by Papa’s sins. She wasn’t Mama either, even if she could replicate her near-divine dried apple pie. Ingrid was her own person, to be damned or redeemed by her own decisions.
After all, if Captain Sutcliff could redeem himself. . . well, surely there was plenty of grace to go around.
“Penny for your thoughts?” asked Cy, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
“I’m thinking I still need to make you a dried apple pie at some point,” she said. “Because I love you, and nothing says love as eloquently as pie. But for now, I think we should get this grim work over and done, and help the Chinese on their way. I miss the feel of the earth beneath my feet.”
Epilogue
Months later . . .
Cy had constructed a covered deck for Ingrid right above the rock-laden beach so that, on mornings like this, she could tread down the stone steps and sit for a while where the brisk wind could bring her the spray of the ocean. The morning was cold and gray, as Central California summers liked to be, but for Ingrid, gray was forever the color of coziness and home.
