The Court of the Air

by Stephen Hunt

  Slowcogs’ head sunk in shame. ‘There is a song in your blood, Molly softbody, and the memory of your cells points the way you must travel.’

  But where have I seen this before? Molly asked herself as they drifted away from the square. Where?

  Molly and the two steammen had only just arrived back at Onestack’s lodgings when the political organizer who had dragged them to the rally appeared at the door. She banged on the front of the workshop. ‘Token day, compatriot metal, token day.’

  Silver Onestack opened the door. ‘Enter, compatriot soft-body.’

  ‘Such a gathering, compatriot metal. Such a show of equality. The day is coming when the dogs on the surface will whine under the weight of our boots, surely it is.’

  ‘Surely,’ Silver Onestack mouthed.

  ‘Your ledger, compatriot.’

  Onestack led the way into the room at the back of the workshop, picked up a dusty book of accounts and handed it to the woman, saying nothing as she leafed through the last few pages. ‘Excellent, compatriot metal. The communal share is now set at ninety per cent. The state will receive its share now.’

  ‘So much?’ said Onestack. ‘I have two assistants now. The girl must eat. We need boiler-grade coke.’

  ‘Careful what you say, compatriot metal,’ warned the woman. ‘Those words smack of shirking and defeatism. Your talent with matters mechanical has kept your position on the reserved list, but the mills are hungry for labour too.’

  ‘My apologies, compatriot softbody,’ said Onestack. ‘Perhaps you could put a word in for us with the committee of supplies for two extra food chits.’

  The woman’s tone softened as Slowcogs handed over a bag of coins. ‘I know your contribution to the commons is hard, compatriot metal. But the struggle always is. Your gift to the cause is helping us forge hammers of freedom to strike down the tyrants and leeches.’

  ‘We’ll eat well when the tyrants are struck down,’ said Molly.

  The woman failed to notice the sarcasm in Molly’s tone. ‘You’re not old enough to remember the famine of Sixty-six, young compatriot. I lost my husband at Haggswood Field when the crushers charged us. My young ones died of hunger when I was locked away in Bonegate for breach of the riot act, nobody in my lodgings with the food or the inclination to feed them. Everything I ever valued and loved was taken away from me by the quality of Middlesteel. All except my freedom. One day we’ll see the light of the surface again, compatriot, and the day will be ours.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said a green-hooded figure coming down the stairs leading up to Onestack’s loft.

  ‘What! How did you get into my workshop?’ Onestack demanded of the intruder.

  The figure leant on a cane and Molly felt a sinking feeling strike her stomach.

  ‘Perhaps you forgot to lock your door?’ said the figure removing his hood. It was him. The refined old killer from Fairborn and Jarndyce; somehow the topper had caught up with Molly, even down here in Grimhope. ‘But then one imagines the concept of a propertyless state rather negates the need for locks, would you not agree, compatriot?’

  ‘Which district are you from?’ spat the political. ‘And who are you to question the word of the revolution?’

  ‘Why the district of Vauxtion,’ said the old gentleman. ‘And once I carried a marshal’s baton. So I do hope you will forgive my small observation that the earnestness of your hod carriers is not going to prove much of a shield against navy fin-bombs falling from a Jackelian airship.’

  ‘What are you rambling about, old goat?’ said the woman. ‘There is no Vauxtion district in Grimhope.’

  ‘I see, damson, that your knowledge of geography is as tired as your rhetoric. Vauxtion is – or should I say, was – a province of Quatérshift. No doubt it bears a drearier label now. Area twelve of the Commonshare, or a similarly tedious designation. Something of a personal inconvenience for myself, given that I bear the title of the Count of Vauxtion.’

  ‘An aristo!’

  He placed his cane on the workshop counter and was walking slowly towards the woman. ‘Indeed, an aristocrat. Although rest assured, your Carlist colleagues in my land have done their best to rid themselves of my kind. I saw my retainers, wife, children and grandchildren marched into a Gideon’s Collar by a mob of your self-righteous compatriots.’

  The political at last recognized the old man’s air of menace and broke for the front room. As she did so a pepperbox-nozzled gas pistol appeared in the count’s hand, and as quick as it did, the woman was collapsing to the floor within a cloud of vapour.

  ‘A tip for you, damson,’ said the count, standing over the corpse. ‘The best way to evade famine is not to seize the breadbasket of the continent, leave her fields un harvested for two years of revolution, then fire a bolt through the neck of every disfavoured soul who knows anything about agriculture.’

  Slowcogs powered towards the old assassin from behind, wheels spinning over the fungus-wood boards. In one smooth movement Count Vauxtion knelt and drew a double-barrelled harpoon gun from his back, the black claw smashing into Slowcogs’ mid-body. Sidestepping, the count watched Slowcogs trundle to a stop by the workshop door, hissing steam from his punctured boiler heart soaking the floor.

  Molly was immediately by Slowcogs’ side as the count covered her with his gas gun.

  ‘I am sorry, Molly softbody,’ wheezed Slowcogs. ‘I have failed you.’

  ‘No, Slowcogs,’ said Molly, tears welling in her eyes. ‘This is my fault. I led us down here.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Count Vauxtion threw a set of rusty Gear-gi-ju wheels on the floor. ‘You might as well blame Guardian Rathbone station’s controller. Do you know how difficult it is to torture a steamman mystic? They can shut down their pain centres at will. I had to find a specialist to break your friend down to a state where he was willing to tell me where to find you.’

  ‘You softbody barbarian,’ cursed Silver Onestack. ‘May the Steamo Loas blight you for your evil.’

  Count Vauxtion casually shot one of Onestack’s legs off with the remaining barrel of his harpoon weapon. With only two sides left on Onestack’s tripod the ponderous steamman bowled over, beached in his own workshop. He tried to stand, slipped, then lost consciousness, his valves overwhelmed by the pain.

  ‘Hardly a barbarian,’ Count Vauxtion said to the immobile steamman. ‘The controller described you as a mad old boiler scratching art with peck blood and fungus water, but he lacked the sensitivity or the reference points to adequately describe your works. They are magnificent, steamman. As one artist to another, I shall leave you your arms and sight. Call it a professional courtesy. I have taken the liberty of taking one of your miniatures as payment; the scene of the girl against the canyon wall.’

  Molly took a step towards the stairs, but the gas gun was instantly pointing at her. A rubber pipe from its handle dangled like a cobra from the count’s sleeve. ‘Please, Molly. My commission requires you to be delivered alive. And there are no chimney stacks in Grimhope for you to shin up.’

  ‘Alive!’ Molly spat. ‘An invitation to supper would have been cheaper.’

  ‘Not to mislead you, my sweet. I have the feeling my present patron will not be leaving you in that state for long.’

  ‘You tell my stepfather to go to hell.’

  ‘Stepfather?’ The count seemed amused. ‘Perhaps, although I doubt it. My current patron prefers to hold to his anonymity, so I can’t speak as to his motives or cause. Not that it really matters. I do not participate in causes any more. I spent most of my life following that course and all it bought me was a cemetery full of friends, family and fallen comrades.’

  ‘Let me help Slowcogs,’ Molly implored.

  The count shook his head. ‘You are too slippery a catch, my dear. And I aimed for your friend’s boiler. Put your hood on and say your goodbyes. Bear in mind anyone you try to warn on our journey out of Grimhope will be dead before you close your beautiful lips, as will you. My patron will pay more for you alive, but
dead will do almost as well.’

  Molly tried to reach out to the steamman as the count pushed her towards the door. ‘Slowcogs.’

  ‘Follow your pattern, Molly softbody,’ whispered the dying metal creature. ‘Wherever it may take you.’

  Standing outside, Molly tried to punch the topper. ‘You’ve bloody killed him.’

  ‘I led twenty thousand of my own soldiers to the slaughter at Morango,’ said the count. ‘And I loved them. One more, one less – just a number, Damson Templar, just another number in a forgotten ledger no one is numerate enough to read anymore.’

  Producing a key, the count locked the door to the workshop. In the street a fat man approached them, puffing. ‘Is compatriot metal not in?’

  ‘The excitement of the rally was too much for him, compatriot,’ said the count. ‘He is taking the rest of the day off.’

  ‘But there’s a broken extraction belt at mill twenty! What shall I tell my committeeman?’

  ‘Tell him?’ the count, said. ‘Tell him that compatriot metal is currently putting a couple of his legs up for a while.’

  Getting into Grimhope with a well-known boiler like Silver Onestack had been relatively simple. The crimson-hooded guards blocking their path showed that leaving with Count Vauxtion was not going to be so easy.

  ‘Papers of travel, compatriot,’ said one of the soldiers.

  ‘There have been reports of a pride of pecks attacking the farms,’ said the count. ‘Productivity will suffer. The committee demands answers.’

  ‘Pecks are always dragging off spore hands, compatriot. We’d have more luck farming the black-furred little buggers instead. But it’s your papers of travel I need to see if you want to go on a picnic with bright eyes here.’

  ‘But of course,’ said the count. He reached inside his cloak as an explosion lifted the roof off a mill in the bottom of the valley.

  ‘Sweet Tuitzilopochtli!’

  ‘Stay here,’ the sergeant shouted at one of the men. ‘The rest of you with me. It could be counter-revolutionaries from the Anarchy Council.’

  Count Vauxtion smiled at the remaining guard. ‘And where would any good revolution be without its counter-revolutionaries?’

  ‘You stay put, compatriot,’ scowled the guard. ‘Until we’ve sorted out what’s happening in town you ain’t going nowhere.’

  ‘Hardly very fraternal, compatriot,’ said the count, bending down to pick something up from the cavern floor. ‘As for the mill, I think you’ll find someone rather carelessly turned the water system off on one of the boilers. See here, a worm.’

  ‘Do I look like I bleeding care?’

  Molly tried to pull away, but the count pushed her back. ‘It’s a matter of philosophical niceties, compatriot. My own personal form of equalization, although where I come from it’s called a vendetta.’ Vauxtion’s hand shot up and a blast of gas spurted into the guard’s face. The brilliant man collapsed to the ground as if an axe had felled him and the count tossed the worm contemptuously on his body. ‘See, compatriot. I have made you equal to both my family and these toiling gardeners of the soil. May the worms enjoy the meal.’

  ‘You murderous old goat,’ Molly shouted. ‘You don’t care who you kill.’

  The count waved his gas gun in the direction of the fungal forest. ‘Quite the opposite, my sweet. Shall we go for our picnic?’

  ‘I—’ Molly flinched back as a boot came down from the sky, flashing past her cheek, and sending the count sprawling over the corpse of the dead guard. The breath whooshed out of her as an arm rammed her spine, encircling her, tossing her into the air and onto a wicker floor. She gazed up stunned into a craynarbian face.

  ‘Ver’fey!’

  ‘I told you it was her,’ said Ver’fey.

  Standing behind the craynarbian was a large woman, the sleeves of her shirt cut short, massive tanned arms jutting out. The same arms that had just seized Molly and lifted her from the ground. She looked oddly familiar.

  Molly rolled off her back and onto her feet. She was in a wicker gondola hardly larger than a boat; above her was a sausage-shaped canvas. A miniature aerostat. Beyond the woman a man stood holding the tiller of a pivot-mounted expansion engine. Molly swayed for a second, dazed, and looked back towards the ground.

  Count Vauxtion was a small dot on the edge of the fungal forest.

  ‘Molly.’ The craynarbian steadied her human friend. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Back,’ said Molly. ‘I need to get back to Grimhope.’

  ‘You’re joking, kid,’ said the woman with the muscled arms. ‘Those asylum rejects would shoot us down as soon as look at us.’

  ‘I have friends down there,’ protested Molly.

  ‘Then make new ones, because we’re heading for the surface.’

  ‘Ver’fey,’ said Molly, ‘in Circle’s name what are you doing here? Can’t you tell her to put us down on the ground?’

  Ver’fey shook her armoured skull, pointing to the man tending the expansion engine. ‘I told him where to find you, Molly, and I said I would come along to help them identify you.’

  She turned to face the engine man, his thin hair whipping in the backdraft from the propeller.

  ‘My apologies, Molly,’ he said. ‘We have risked too much to find you to risk losing you back in Grimhope.’

  ‘A thank you would be nice, kid,’ added the woman. ‘I doubt if the count’s intentions towards you were any more altruistic than they normally are.’

  ‘You know him?’ said Molly. ‘Who are you people?’

  ‘We’ve run into each other before, kid, the count and myself. Normally at high speed.’

  ‘Don’t you recognize her, Molly?’ asked Ver’fey. ‘From the books at Sun Gate?’

  Of course – the penny dreadful cover illustrations. A tanned woman with gorilla-sized arms sweeping across a ravine in a Liongeli jungle, clutching a massive purple gem stolen from a temple.

  ‘Amelia Harsh,’ said Molly.

  ‘Professor Harsh,’ corrected the woman.

  ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘The best I can, kid. But if you mean why are we pulling your scrawny frame out of Grimhope, you can talk to the money.’ She pointed to the man by the expansion engine.

  ‘Money?’

  Professor Harsh shrugged. ‘Poking around the ruins of Chimeca doesn’t come cheap. This boat might be theirs, but what the university pays me doesn’t cover half of my work.’

  ‘Why are we here, Molly?’ said the money, sadly, ‘Because someone in Middlesteel is offering a fortune for your body – alive preferred, but dead perfectly acceptable.’

  Chapter Nine

  Analyst Ninety-one pretended not to have noticed the newcomer standing outside the door to Lady Riddle’s office. She casually shuffled the punch cards for the afternoon’s transaction engine load as Analyst Two-eighty slotted them into a pneumatic tube container.

  ‘It is him,’ said Two-eighty, her voice low.

  ‘I thought he would be taller,’ whispered Ninety-one. But she didn’t sound disappointed.

  It was the signature tweed cap that really settled it. He looked like he might have just walked in from a day’s grouse shooting on some green limestone pile in the uplands.

  ‘Eyes front and centre,’ ordered Regulator Nine as she walked past the processing station. They busied themselves as the regulator went up to him.

  ‘Lord Wildrake, the Advocate General will see you now.’

  Shutting the door on the calculation hall, the regulator ushered the visitor into a private chamber, a vista of thick armoured crystal glass overlooking the still sky-reaches of the troposphere. It was always calm here, so high; the Court of the Air floating far above the storm systems and the worries of the Jackelians below. He stood a moment, watching the smaller aerostats patrolling beyond the tethered spheres and globes. Razor-finned and tipped with long pulse barbs, their exclusive purpose was to drive off any skraypers that floated too close to the city.

&nb
sp; He took off his cloak and hung it on a hook next to the marble head of Isambard Kirkhill, then clicked his heels to announce his presence to Lady Riddle.

  At the other end of the room, the light and the space of the office offset the ebony skin of the Advocate General perfectly. No doubt as was intended.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Lady Riddle.

  Wildrake shook his head and with a small jump, grabbed hold of one of the message ducts running across the ceiling. He began to do chin lifts on the pipe, the ripples of his muscles raw agony after his morning workout.

  Lady Riddle swore to herself. His addiction to the damn drug was getting worse. ‘How much shine are you taking now, Wildrake?’

  ‘Just enough to keep me hard,’ said Wildrake. ‘To keep me solid. Talk to your sawbones in pharmacology, they keep me supplied.’

  There was theoretically no upper limit to how much muscle an abuser could put on while chewing shine, the drug obtained from guard units of the city-states, where whole elite regiments warped themselves into living bull-women.

  ‘Tell me about the RAN Bellerophon, Wildrake.’

  Lord Wildrake talked quickly, trying to get each sentence out between the blaze of pain in his arms. ‘I tracked down what was left of her to the dunes outside Dazbah under their camouflage nets. Full marks to the analysts involved for that prediction.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lady Riddle.

  ‘One of the officers had been turned; they were holding his family prisoner and blackmailed him into putting the airship off course. Then he arranged for it to land on the other side of the Cassarabian border with a buoyancy leak. The local tribesmen took it from there.’

  ‘Our cloudies?’

  ‘Most of them were poisoned by something the traitor had put in their grog ration. I managed to free a couple of the survivors. The women in the crew had already been passed to the caliph’s biologick breeders by the time I arrived, I fear to say.’

  ‘Too bold,’ said Lady Riddle. ‘They are becoming far too bold. Something will need to be done about Cassarabia before long.’

  ‘The airship’s celgas has been siphoned off to a facility outside Dazbah,’ said Lord Wildrake. ‘They were using the wombs of our female ratings to try to witch up an organic substitute for celgas.’