Far in the distance, veiled by evening color, a vast black smudge polluted a full thirty degrees of sky. The sargasso of Leaf's Choir ate all the light shone at it, and cast an indigo shadow across hundreds of miles of air. Minor wars had been fought over the significant zone of winter caused by that shadow; among the principalities of Candesce a significant minority favored the idea of towing Leaf's Choir into a final incineration at the central sun. The majority was horrified at the prospect of smothering the Sun of Suns in that much ash, and predicted dire consequences from prolonged darkness, and as the purified residue fountained back up. Arguments about what to do with the Choir had seesawed for centuries.
No one had ever seriously suggested that the Choir be sent the other way, into the outer volumes of winter. To dispose of the sargasso among barbarians would sully the memory of one of the greatest nations of Candesce.
For all Chaison Farming's intentions, there was no way that the expeditionary force could reach the Choir in only two hours. Darkness and the crowded air slowed them, forced detours and unpredictable maneuvers. Rockets began to appear from behind, red streaks zipping past in ominous silence as any second now an explosion might convulse the Rook; and yet you could only take so much fear. Hayden watched as long as he could, but eventually drowsed, and dreamed confused half-dreams of Aerie, his parents, and the destruction of their half-built sun.
The impressions stayed with him even as he woke to find someone shaking his shoulder. "Armorer wants you," said a crewman. Hayden grunted his thanks and levered himself away from the window. The thrum of the engines continued; apparently they weren't dead yet. But it was impossible to tell where they were or how long this chase would last.
As he made his way through the ship he saw men sealing portholes and cracks with thick gummy tar. Others were hooking hydrogen peroxide tanks to the engines and checking the air distribution hoses, preparing for sargasso running. There was little conversation, just a muted hum of urgency.
It all seemed reassuring, somehow. Without noticing, he had come to think of the Rook as his home—and it was hardly surprising. Hayden hadn't had a home in many years; certainly the various bug-ridden flats and one-room bachelor's nests he'd slept in hadn't counted. He had been alone for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to be among friends. But the atmosphere of the Rook reminded him of Gavin Town. Ironic that it was a ship of the enemy. He passed Martor, who slept strapped to a beam just behind the hangar. The boy looked younger than his fifteen years. A few hours before he had told Hayden about the fight at the Gehellen naval shipyard. The Gehellens had begun offloading the crews along a narrow metal scaffold, a barred cage with troops hanging in the air outside of it. It was a shooting gallery, really, had they all been in it when the shots from the palace had been heard. Luckily there were still men in the ships able to man the rocket racks, and they had blasted the troops who had tried to disengage the cage and sail it away to a nearby blockhouse. Men had spilled into the air and a fierce swordfight erupted. Martor had described this in his usual way, waving his arms and making stabbing motions. But his heart didn't seem in it; he'd known men who had died in this battle and he seemed to be beginning to realize what real death meant.
Hayden turned away from the boy, shaking his head. No—these people weren't the enemy, no matter what their homeland had done to his. Aerie deserved its freedom, and Slipstream as a nation deserved to be knocked down. But the people of Slipstream and the people of Aerie deserved equal respect and consideration. They were only human, even the loyal crewmen of the Slipstream navy whom he now counted as friends.
Somehow, he mused, there must be a way to separate the political from the personal. His bitterness over the past years seemed increasingly to have come from not believing that such a tiling was possible.
He passed one other person on his way: the forlorn figure of Richard Reiss curled up next to a porthole, where he watched the skies in mourning for the life of luxury and prestige he had so suddenly lost.
Hayden rapped on the door to Aubri Mahallan's box-shaped workshop. The wooden panel squeaked open an inch, then widened, letting loose a fan of lamplight. He squeezed inside and the silhouetted shape of Aubri shut the door behind him.
And latched it.
"What can I do for you?" He reached out and somehow she had swirled closer and his outstretched fingers slid up her arm and onto her shoulder—which was bare.
He started to snatch his hand back but she held it, and now his fingers strayed onto the smooth soft skin of her pectoral. "You stuck with us through everything," Aubri murmured. "I thought you needed some sort of reward."
With the permission of her fingertips on his wrist, his own fingers slipped further onto the satin slope of her breast. With a simple scissoring motion Aubri reached around his waist with her legs and drew herself to him. His other hand reached down to cup her hip and encountered warm skin.
"Now we must be very, very quiet," she whispered. "Or we'll be the crew's main topic of conversation for days."
"Um," he said; but then she was kissing him, and he was spared having to mink of any clever replies.
* * * * *
SPOTLIT BY SMOKING electric torches, men braced themselves in me hangar doors of the ships and waved flags at the dark silhouettes of their sister vessels. The flags fluttered and buzzed in the fearsome headwind, but the messages that flickered across the rushing air were clear and measured. Encoded status reports, inventories, updates to the chart numbers, all flowed steadily between the members of the force, routine and controlled.
—Until one message to the Rook caused the duty officer to curse under his breath. Reluctantly, he sent Martor to knock on the admiral's door.
Hayden Griffin was drifting in a timeless haze of pleasure in Aubri Mahallan's arms when the Rook shook from some sort of collision. They were both instantly awake. There was another bump and then the grating sound of hull-against-hull contact. Hayden heard shouting.
Aubri's eyes were wide. "We're being boarded!"
He shook his head. "No gunshots. Something's up, though."They both hastily dressed. "Stay here," he said. "It might be the Gehellens after all."
She shuddered. "If we really are being boarded, I'm going out the window this time."
He flipped out the doorway and closed the portal, immediately encountering Martor. "Come on!" shouted the boy. "We're taking on passengers." He bounded back toward the hangar.
The Rook and the Unseen Hand were lashed together, door to door. The ships bucked and strained against the ropes and wind whined through the gap. Men were leaping between the ships carrying boxes and rockets. The Rook's new boatswain yelled and pointed, face red and sweating, as crates and bedrolls bounced and tumbled through the air.
"What's going on?" Hayden asked one of the Unseen Hand's crewmen. The man grimaced and waved at his ship.
"Oxygen system's busted. We'll suffocate if we take the Hand into that place right now. Admiral ordered us to transfer over to the Rook, leave a skeleton crew on board. with fewer people breathing over there, they might stand a chance." He looked around at the crowded interior of the Rook. "Where can I strap my bedroll?"
"Martor, take care of him," said Hayden. He headed for the hangar doors, intending to help with the transfer. Glancing forward between the ships, he was startled to see nothing but blackness ahead of them. "Where are we?"
"Hard to say," said one of the hatch gang. "Word is that it's too dark for sighting and we don't know the local navigation beacons. The sargasso could be ten miles away, or we might be about to run into it at full speed."
Hayden spent a few minutes jumping back and forth between the ships carrying supplies—crates of food, coils of rope, and rolls of canvas for the braking sails. He was untying a barrel of hydrogen peroxide near the back of the Hand when the shouting in the hold took on a hysterical edge.
"Cast off! Cast off! Just cut it!" Hayden let go of the barrel and bounded up to the Hand's hangar. Men were frantically slashing at the
ropes that bound the two ships together. He opened his mouth to ask what he could do to help and was drowned out by the sound of both ships' collision horns going off. "Brace for impact!" someone screamed.
Something like a giant black claw swept through the narrow space between the ships. One crewman who had been jumping the gap was suddenly gone. At the same time, both ships lurched and a series of loud rattling bangs shook the Hand.
"We're in the trees!" They had reached Leaf's Choir; apparently the navigators had misjudged the distance after all. More bangs, rattles, and cracks signaled impacts with the charred branches of the former forest. The Hand shuddered and began to slow.
The gap between the ships suddenly expanded. Hayden realized he was holding tight to a beam aboard a vessel that had no oxygen supply. Everyone he knew was on board the Rook, including Aubri. In seconds they would be separated and he might never see her again.
He spun and put his feet against the beam. Looking up he saw the square of light that was Rook's open hangar door. Men crowded there, but only one was looking in his direction. It was Carrier.
For a moment he and Venera's servant locked gazes. Hayden saw Carrier hesitate—just for a second—and then he extended his hand.
Hayden jumped. For a second he was in turbulent air, surrounded by lashing black branches and the scent of charcoal. Then Carrier had him by the wrist and was pulling him into the Rook. The hatch gang cheered.
Carrier let go and turned away. The boatswain pushed Hayden toward the inner door while shouting, "Shut the hatch! Tar it! Stand by for sargasso running."
Hayden looked back as the hatch closed. Carrier had disappeared. Through the closing hatch he could see the lights of the Unseen Hand flickering through a chaos of whipping branches. The Hand veered away, its light guttered and was lost; then the hatch slammed shut and the gang moved to seal it.
They had reached Leaf's Choir.
* * * * *
MOST OF THE Gehellen vessels fell back to circle the black forest in frustration, but some sargasso-equipped ships continued to follow the Slipstreamers. This made it risky for the Rook to slow down—but it was equally risky to continue at speed. The outermost layers of Leaf's Choir had been picked over by charcoal harvesters for centuries, and now consisted mostly of long spearlike trunks, denuded of branches, that wove and curved through the air for hundreds of feet at a time. These spears could puncture the hull of even an armored warship, if struck at high speed.
Each tree had originally been rooted to a small clump of asteroidal dirt. As they grew they wound branches around one another, like swimmers grasping for companions. With no sense of up or down, the trees had used Candesce and the local suns as their targets, sending threadlike stalks and branches through the empty air, spreading nets of leaves to catch light and passing moisture. Gradually, they had formed a vast and diffuse substance that made its own weather, caught drifting dust and stones and assimilated them, and greedily sucked up the carbon dioxide and smoke of the industries that thrived among them. Humans had woven the pliable branches into elaborate structures, entire cities of living green that went on, chamber by beautiful breathing chamber, for miles. Generations of gardeners cultivated their home trees, adding flowers and liana. Giant spheres and rods of water filled the central spaces, cupped by a thousand delicate fronds, in which fish and people swam. The people of Leaf's Choir had cleverly fashioned gigantic mirrors out of water—simply by stretching nets and wetting them until the water clinging to neighboring strands met and merged into a single surface—and used these to reflect the light of Candesce and their own two suns many miles into the forest.
All of it had burned. All was now black and sunless, the air replaced by stagnant smoke that never settled, merely eddied and spiraled around itself in an eternal dance of mourning.
The ships' navigators soon started cracking under the strain of finding their way through this gargantuan, mazelike tomb. They spent hours staring out at the advancing lines of black lit by the ships' headlights. Odd objects would appear in the light and slide by like hallucinations: window lintels, blackened shoes, spoons, and bedposts. The men began to swear they saw figures beckoning to them from the darkness beyond the branches.
And all the while, the Gehellens followed.
Chaison Fanning locked himself in the chart room with Gridde and Aubri Mahallan. They compared photographs of the measureless spaces and distant, branching buttresses of forest growth to the charts Aubri had found in the library. The precious treasure map from the tourist station waited in a glass case beneath the chart table. "It all hinges on finding the city of Carlinth," Gridde said over and over. "Find the city, we can find the rest of the way. If we don't…"
There were reports of men collapsing suddenly. Unless the air was kept moving, carbon dioxide, monoxides, and smoke from outside seeped in and pooled. You could put your head into an invisible cloud of death without knowing and just pass out. It was as though some unseen monster stalked the ship. Everybody watched everybody; nobody slept unless their face was near a fan.
Dangerous as it was, some men found themselves obsessively watching out the portholes. Hayden was one. He had no duties since the bikes were useless without oxygen. Though he hungered to be with her, Aubri was busy with the charts. The only way he could feel he was contributing was by maintaining some sense of where they were.
Of course he'd heard of sargassos. They happened whenever a forest became too large and caught fire. Normally, though, a sargasso didn't last long. Air moved through it chasing the smoke away. The charred raft of branches broke up or was taken apart and everything went back to normal. It was terrifying to mink that a forest could become so large that its sargasso could never be healed. As he watched he thought about the fact that an entire civilization was entombed here in the dark: the Rook hummed past chalk-white stone house cubes and blackened town wheels where only ghosts now dwelt.
There were hints in the lines and buttresses of the forest that Leaf's Choir had once been a realm of grand sculptured bubbles made up of smaller bubbles, a fractal palace with living walls. At times the perspectives became dizzying. Miles-wide chambers and arches had walls made up of buildings—houses as bricks, towers as pillars, the city as building material. It was almost reassuring that their full extent was no longer visible; the grandeur and the feeling of loss that must go with seeing it would be unbearable.
At times it seemed as though the Rook had entered some other plane of existence. Home, friends, ordinary cares no longer existed. There was only the breathing of the pumps and the distant roar of the engines. Faces were side-lit or merely imagined on silhouetted figures passing between the active workstations of the ship. And maybe this otherworldliness was what caused the crew of the Tormentor to let down their guard.
Hayden didn't see the missile itself. The Tormentor was somewhere out of view on the other side of the Rook. He did see a row of distant house windows, previously black, light up in lurid reds one after another—a quick whipcrack motion from right to left—and then the ghostly network of dead branches was thrown into stark relief by a burst of white light.
The roll of thunder followed moments later.
The illusion of peace was shattered by shouts, warning horns, and furious activity. The porthole suddenly moved away from Hayden as the Rook began to roll over. "Running lights off!" the boatswain was shouting. "Headlight off!"
"What are we doing?" demanded the airman from the Unseen Hand who Hayden had spoken to earlier. "Aren't we going to stand and fight?"
The boatswain shook his head. "Admiral's orders. The others are going to draw them away while we make a run for the treasure. Don't worry. He planned for this."
"He plays fast and loose with our lives," muttered the crewman.
"Right here, right now," replied the boatswain, "caution'll get you killed."
Roars and rumbles could be heard through the hull for many minutes, but the light of battle faded behind quickly, and eventually the relentless silence of
Leaf's Choir settled back over the ship— worse than before, if that were possible, because the Rook was barely moving now. The navigator and pilot sat with their noses to the bridge portholes, staring into the darkness until their eyes watered. Occasional thumps on the hull and the sharp snap of breaking branches signaled their mistakes. The ship would shudder at such times and slow, and the fire crew would rush around looking for broken seams, cracks, or punctures—anything that might let in the toxic mix that passed for air in this place. It was fully two hours before the admiral allowed the Rook's headlight to be lit again.
By that time, Hayden was certain they were lost.
* * * * *
CHAISON FANNING HAD begun to feel unpleasantly familiar with the back of Gridde's head. The old man had his eye glued to the periscope in the chart room and hadn't moved in ten minutes; Chaison suspected he was asleep. Would that Chaison could be.
He was hiding here, he had to admit. It was just too nerve-wracking to be on the bridge right now. After all, the entire mission-—and possibly the future of Slipstream itself—was riding on the events of the next day. Or rather, no, it wasn't the direness of the situation that was keeping his nerves on edge. He'd already fought several battles to get here, and none had affected him like this interminable waiting. No, it was the prospect of being proven a fool that bothered him. In all likelihood there was no pirate treasure; the very phrase was an oxymoron, for pirates were outcasts, the poorest of the poor.
If it turned out that he had betrayed his men's trust by luring them halfway across the world on a bootless quest, Chaison would willingly step out of the Rook's aft hatch without a gas helmet and make Leaf's Choir his tomb. Or give himself up to his men's wrath. It wouldn't matter which at that point.
"There it is!" Gridde had been awake after all. He said nothing else, until Chaison put a hand on his shoulder and said, "What, man? What do you see?"
"It's the city," the old man whispered. "Dead as a forgotten legend. "Your wife's map starts here. From here, I can find our way."
Sun of Suns v-1 Page 21
