by Andrew Post
“Shut it,” Aksel said over his shoulder. He stepped closer to Clyde. “I think things worked out pretty well here. Your dodgy siblings don’t want Geyser to fall any more than you do. While they kept me in the dark on a lot of stuff and, true, their main goal wasn’t exactly cuddly, I think as far as Geyser is concerned, you have nothing to worry about. At least until you return home after all this.” He spun a finger overhead.
“Did they survive the frigate crash?” Clyde said mildly.
Aksel exchanged a look with Nevele.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t see any bodies. I can only assume.”
Clyde took a moment. “If they did survive, we’ll deal with them when it comes to it.” He swallowed before continuing. It couldn’t have been easy to know your own family hated you to the point of wanting you dead. “They are a secondary matter that concerns only my well-being. The city’s is primary. Like you said, Nevele, if Raziel wanted it protected for his own ends, we could’ve relied on him—regardless of his feelings toward me. But without knowing for sure, we can’t count on him to help protect Geyser. We have to act as if this is entirely up to us, as it always has been.”
“Want to know what I think?” Aksel said. “I say we use what time we’ve got left intelligently. Do it your way: go hunt a myth. Give that a day. After that, do it my way: use the coordinates and go after the Odium directly. Without Höwerglaz, they’ve got nothing. And I imagine while the stone is important, they won’t risk such an attack without having all of their pieces in place to break ground on this weaver factory they have in mind. We go in, guns blazing, take as many of the wankers out as we can. Surprise attack. Suicide missions, when they do work once in a great while, work spectacularly.”
Clyde’s gaze shifted to Nevele.
She raised her hands and took a full step back. “Your call, love.”
Clyde faced Aksel. “All right. One day of searching, and then we’ll talk about doing it your way.”
Aksel nodded and ducked into the cockpit. “You’re the boss.” After ordering Emer to move it, he dropped into the seat and buckled himself in.
They lifted off.
Clyde, next to Nevele, stared straight ahead, cautiously confident. Perhaps naively so.
Nevele scolded herself for thinking such a thing of him. But, really, how do you define bravery? Is it by the circumstances? Popular opinion? Nevele considered maybe bravery was decided according to the beholder, individually, a subjective thing. Of course, that meant one individual’s hero, seen by another set of eyes, could be just your garden variety psychotic with a death wish. Nevele wondered what Zoya thought of her, how she remembered her.
Turning away, watching the sandy emptiness of the Lakebed fall, she caught her own reflection in the porthole glass. For most of Nevele’s life, she’d avoided anything with a reflective surface, even a glance of herself upside down in a spoon. Over time, she’d learned to not only accept what was there but embrace it, happy with her differentness.
She returned the fixed stare, the starry sky zipping by beyond her reflected eyes. In them, around them. She wondered who, underneath the patchwork, she really was.
Maybe I’m as torn inside.
When this was all over and she told Clyde everything she’d done, who would she be? The real her, or could she continue being the person Clyde believed her to be? Clyde’s forgiveness was enormous but without a doubt, like all things, it had a breaking point.
If she told him, she’d risk destroying that make-believe her forever. Or, worse, she’d never get to pretend just for herself that her clean soul was really hers. Even calling herself Nevele was an attempt at distancing herself from Margaret. She’d adopted the name within minutes of meeting Clyde in that hospital basement, when he, Flam, and Rohm had rescued her. It was as if she knew they’d share a future in which the real her was not—and never would be—welcome.
When Clyde was being sweet and sincere and called her Margaret, it savaged her inside. Took every ounce of her to continue playing the part, never allowing a moment to sneak past that’d imply there was something unexpected beneath; she’d allow no corners for Clyde to find and pick at and peel back the veneer. No, she’d have to allow him to keep that one thing about her, her real name, and hear him use it with her and smile as if it warmed her heart. As if she were happy he knew who she really was. When he didn’t. Not at all.
In the glass, stars moved behind her eyes, blinked when she blinked. Close but not me.
This is murder.
She hoped he could accept her. Almost as much as she hoped she could accept herself.
CHAPTER 12
Stalwart Companions
Finding Dreck’s room empty, Gorett was free to approach the large window. With that stolen moment, he spied all there was to spy, allowed a small flight of fancy—a jump back in time to when he looked out a similar large window.
If he squinted, that ugly metal sculpture of the Mechanized Goddess could be the geyser. And the heap of junk at her feet could be the town square’s fountains. He missed it. Home. He recalled a word he’d once stumbled across: hiraeth. Homesickness for a place that no longer exists.
Sure, Geyser was still there—for the time being—but it’d never be his home again. If he were ever spotted there, he’d probably be dragged off to the dungeon. Or simply killed on sight, slain at Clyde Pyne’s feet.
The image snapped his focus back, fear rocketing him out of the dark daydream.
He spotted the Magic Carpet on the frosty plain. The rear ramp was down, and he could see the flicker and flash of welding being done. Dreck, steady at his work.
There’d been difficulties.
Not that anyone discussed them with Gorett, but he’d overheard how the warhead was giving them trouble. Something about incompatible engineering. The warhead, a leftover from the Territorial Skirmish, would require tinkering to get the Magic Carpet to effectively house it—and, with luck, not blow up while on board with them.
And just outside the starship, there it was, on its wheeled cart under a patina of snow, like an enormous bullet aching for its turn down the barrel. The reality of the whole plot sank in, a quiet panic seizing Gorett as he pictured Geyser in ruins.
Then do something about it, his mother said.
“Okay,” he murmured to the woman who’d been dead nearly forty years, not fearing her voice anymore because it was at least some comfort. He left Dreck’s room and went downstairs. He donned a parka, wrapped himself in scarves, pulled on three pairs of gloves, and pushed through the exit door.
Immediately the blue world outside jumped at him with morbid fervor. He felt the chill bleed in, as if sharp, icy hands scoured for any hidden warmth it could squeeze black.
Of all times, a terrible itch came. He tried scratching it, behind his left ear, but couldn’t get at it with the gloves on. He tried to ignore it even as it became angry at his inattention.
He crunched on through the snow, each footfall making a pop when his heavy boots broke through the thin membrane of ice. As he turned the corner of the frost-smudged building, the wind became a little more tolerable.
Ahead, he watched a man lift a device in two hands, what looked like a portable cannon, sending a small sphere shooting. The endless sunlight danced off the sphere’s surface as it blurred into the distance, silently propelled at a brisk clip. It seemed to hit an invisible wall, locked in the air. In a moment, a heap of metal jumped free of the snow below and became a thick coating of rusty scrap around the sphere, perhaps held with magnets. The pirate turned in place with the cannon, and the floating sphere carried its payload. He released the trigger, and the sphere shed its clanking brown armor onto an existing pile. Load delivered, he recalled the sphere and sent it in a new direction to do it again.
Gorett, in his fascination, had stopped walking. The Odium must have ransacked some fairly well-off locales if such a technological wonder was now in their possession. He moved on, shuffling through knee-high snow, re
membering how cold he was.
Past the towering metal statue of the Odium’s goddess, Gorett thumped up the ramp of the Magic Carpet. Here he could remove his hood since all around were space heaters, their buzzing coils throwing a lavalike hue across the ship’s interior. Gorett warmed his nose near the coils, slapping circulation back into his cheeks.
A level below, in the ship’s bowels, Dreck swore and something crashed.
Gorett stepped away from the glowing congregation of space heaters to take the ladder down, when something caught his eye. The doorway dividing where he was, in the holds, from the bunk area was made of retrofitted wood—a house’s door. Carved with care, starting about three feet off the floor, was a series of notches.
— Nimbelle, 11
— Nimbelle, 8
— Nimbelle, 6
— Nimbelle, 5
— Nimbelle, 4.5
— Nimbelle, 3
Curious.
But then again, nothing of the Odium’s was originally theirs. It was all gently used, as Dreck once said. Still, Gorett couldn’t help but wonder who this Nimbelle was and what happened to her.
Mother was there, with him—he could feel her—but she had no opinion to give.
At the bottom of the ship, he found Dreck hammering a wide hole into the ship’s belly. Gorett had to shout to be heard.
Dreck spun, hand halfway to his holster. Seeing it was only Gorett, he grunted, “What is it?” and gave him his back again, returning to work.
“How’d you come to own this vessel?” Gorett repeated.
Dreck set the sledgehammer aside and, without any tools, disassembled another layer of the Magic Carpet’s shielding.
“Spoils of war.” Dreck lovingly thumped the ship’s hull, a ringing toll. “My first bird, what elevated me from a rule follower to the entrepreneur I am today.” He paused, eyeing Gorett a moment, appearing caught. “But I assume that’s not what you came out here to discuss. Out with it.” Dreck lifted a cloud of metal dice from the new hole. Once free of the engine compartment, they rained into a messy heap, much like the process Gorett had watched outside, except more precise and without the aid of technology.
Gorett wrung his hands. “I’m wondering if we could discuss Geyser’s future.”
“What’s left of it, you mean? Oh, about forty-eight hours?” When he laughed, the fog of his breath seeped through his scarves’ material.
“Is its total destruction necessary?”
The pirate’s shoulders drooped. “Pitka. I thought we covered this.”
“There’s no other way we can get the stone?”
“I don’t know why you’re so torn up over the place. Your reign’s over. Done. Pyne’s kid is in charge now. You should be happy. At least you’re getting something out of this.”
Gorett had no retort. Dreck was right.
“Now, if you’ve nothing else, leave me be.” Again, he turned his back. When Gorett was king, the insult would’ve resulted in a thousand-spot ticket.
Something rose in him. Anger. It came simmering, frothy and red. Bubbling from it: Take his gun. And shoot him with it.
The boiling ended abruptly, cooled by cowardice. “I can’t do that.” Aloud. Blast.
Dreck turned his head slightly. “I hope that was the wind I just heard.”
Snowflakes swirled into the ship through the gaping hole, alighting on Gorett’s eyelashes. Through them, Gorett studied Dreck’s holster. The grip was within reach. He’s a devious man who knows he’s a devious man. He’s been waiting for someone with the gall to end him, wanting it. Be that man.
“I can’t . . .”
An annoyed sigh escaped Dreck as he tugged his arms free of the tangled mass of wires, slapped the heap to the floor, and turned around again.
Gorett remained where he was. He was shaking but wasn’t certain if it was only because of the cold.
Dreck lifted his goggles, unbuttoned his hood. His bare face was pink. “You hearing things? Voices and the like?”
Don’t tell him.
Gorett shook his head—but a little too late.
“What are they telling you?” Dreck pushed Gorett back. “To do bad things?”
“I’m not hearing anything. I check my eyes every morning, just as you said I should. Look. I’m not infected.”
Dreck regarded Gorett, pushing his face toward him, eyes wide. He shoved him back again. “Doesn’t always show in the eyes. They’re getting wise. Learning to hide the symptoms.”
“Learning?”
His gun, Pitka.
“Why do you keep eyeballing my shooter?” Dreck sounded almost amused. “Fancy taking it from me, popping me in the gut? Is that what it’s telling you to—?”
“No, I just—”
Dreck grabbed him by the beard, wrenching his head to one side, then the other, and brought his jaw up so hard he thought his head might snap off. When Dreck looked behind Gorett’s left ear, he stopped dragging his head about, let go of him, and took a long step back.
“Sure enough,” Dreck said, wiping his hands off on his oil-stained trousers again and again, “you’ve got one all right.”
“What?” Gorett slapped a hand over the spot Dreck had been prodding. It was where he’d been itchy all afternoon. There was certainly a bump, but he never thought to hold a finger to the pustule and wait to feel squiggly movement beneath. Now that he did and felt it, his hand leaped away from the spot.
“Fix me, then,” Gorett blurted. “Do what you need to do. Use your fabrick, as you’ve done with the other men. Get in there and take that blasted thing out.” He could feel the thing in his neck wiggling like a fly that’d fallen into a wound and somehow survived after the skin had healed over.
Dreck’s lips curled. “Huh. Look what she’s handed us, Gorett. The Goddess saw you were stagnant, a gear with stripped teeth.”
Take his gun. Shoot him.
“The Goddess has put a knot in your life. Now it’s your job to unknot it or let it become a noose. And I, always on the lookout for opportunities, see that you are in need of something. A remedy. One only I can supply.”
“I’ll gouge this thing out myself,” Gorett threatened, eyeing Dreck’s toolbox, the top tray heaped with many things that’d be suitable. “I’m not coming away from this deal with anything less than what we agreed on. That wouldn’t be—”
“Fair?” Dreck chuckled.
Gorett’s voice cracked. “Do you want to just leave me with nothing? This entire time you could’ve. You said so yourself. I have nothing over you. No leverage to make demands. I am completely at your mercy. But this is my life we’re talking about.”
“All right, then,” Dreck said, crossing his arms, “let’s talk numbers. How much is your life worth to you? Use a percentage.”
“Percentage? Of what?”
“Of wendal stone you’d be willing to part with for me to save your life.”
As Gorett considered, he competed with the noise whose origin he now knew, but now it had begun screaming. When he was about to throw out a number, Dreck raised a hand, the radio on his hip blaring his name.
“Dreck here. Go ahead.”
“Sir, uh, you know how Proboscis took the Praise to Her to Adeshka?”
“Yeah, and has he found that fence for us? He’s been gone long enough.”
“Well, uh, actually, the Praise is showin’ in western Lakebed now, sir.”
Lips peeling back, Dreck closed his grip around the radio, its plastic cracking. “We already have men in Nessapolis. We need that ship here. Big day’s not far off, might want to remind him.”
“He’s not answering, sir.”
Dreck’s glare cut to Gorett, who pushed on his neck pustule, thinking he could suffocate the bone worm.
“Know anything about this, Gorett? Some kind of under-the-table goings-on with Proboscis? If you do, best speak up before I find out myself.”
The radio in Dreck’s hand droned. “If he shows up in Nessapolis, do you want me to have
the men there send him back our way?”
Dreck steamed the radio grille with his breath. “How many more ships do we have in the fleet here at home?”
“Yours and twenty-five others in the hangar, sir.”
“If Proboscis shows up in Nessapolis, have the men shoot him out of the sky. We can spare the Praise to Her. No mutiny or anyone showing symptoms of such”—he focused on Gorett—“will be tolerated. May the Goddess junk him. Out.”
As much as it looked like he would’ve preferred smashing the radio, Dreck clicked it off and returned it to his belt. “Even if you’re trying something—that thing digging around in your skull giving you ideas—it doesn’t matter.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Ten you, ninety me. And that’s generous.” Dreck approached the ladder to leave the ship’s oily guts.
Gorett tried reaching for him but fell onto his hands and knees in the dirty, melted snow pooling on the floor. “But the worm! Please, I’m begging you.”
Dreck hesitated at the bottom rungs only long enough to say, “Think of it as a companion, a firm friend who’s always with you, one that’ll keep you honest.”
“Proboscis and I had no deal, I’m telling you—”
With nothing further, Dreck clomped up the ladder and was gone.
Gorett’s pants wicked up the puddles and froze his hands. Although he was technically alone now, he wasn’t. The worm spoke, in his mother’s voice, tsking him.
Now look at the mess you’re in.
CHAPTER 13
Day Two
Pilgrims and Pointless Pleas
All Flam remembered of the night before was the pain of drawing the sword out of his gut and the clunk the bloodied thing made hitting the floorboard.
After that, everything was flicks and flashes.
Getting the vehicle door open.
Hitting the parking lot on elbows and knees, the agony rioting his insides as he dragged himself along. He couldn’t stand, could barely breathe. He halfway wondered if Nula—no, Moira, he remembered—had poisoned the blade.
