The Flux Engine

by Dan Willis

  “Sharpsburg is a trading hub,” she said. “There are a dozen warehouses and twice as many airships there right now.”

  “Good, they won’t notice one more. Bring us down at a skydock nearby, double-time.” Hickok turned to Robi. “Go get that compass from the pilothouse.”

  Robi ran to the stairs and headed forward while Hickok pulled a spare duster from a cabinet next to the gun locker. This one wasn’t as ornate as his usual coat, just a plain brown leather one. He made an irritated face as he donned it.

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked.

  John hadn’t realized that he’d just been standing there holding his gun belt, torn between following Hickok’s instructions and running for the engine room. It would be easy to explain why he desperately wanted to touch a crystal to see if he could still hear it, but he didn’t want to tell Hickok. There, in that moment, he felt like it would be revealing a shameful weakness, that somehow Hickok would see him as less of a man, so he buckled on his gun belt instead.

  He finished tying the leg strap just as Robi returned. She held the compass with the sympathetic crystal in her hand and wore a small, close-fitting backpack over her clothes. The crystal in the compass was under glass, but John should be able to hear it if he held it. He opened his mouth to ask Robi for it, but at that moment the deck pitched under his feet and he had to grab the table to keep from falling.

  “We’re coming down,” Sylvia’s voice said as the airship yawed hard to one side. “I’ll have us alongside the dock in a few moments.”

  “Okay,” Hickok said, stepping to the door that separated the galley from the deck. “Once we’re down, we stick together and follow the compass until we find Solomon’s airship. As soon as we find it, you two stay put and let me check it out.”

  “I could sneak on board and—” Robi began but Hickok cut her off.

  “We’re not interested in Solomon’s ship,” he said. “We need to find whoever is picking up his supply of flux. With any luck, they’re still here. Everybody clear?”

  They both nodded, then Hickok opened the door. A blast of hot, dusty air rushed in and Hickok plunged out onto the deck. Robi followed, then John, who shut the door behind. As he moved amidships, the Desert Rose dropped down beside a solid-looking brick building with painted eaves and planter boxes full of well-tended flowers. An attendant in a braided jacket stood on the dock in a funny cap, apparently waiting to welcome them. Mounted to the wall above him was a painted sign that read simply, The Royal.

  “Save it,” Hickok said as the overdressed man began to speak. He flipped over the lapel of his duster where he had pinned his enforcer badge. “See my engineer about the docking fee.”

  He pushed past the man onto the dock and kept going until he reached the street below.

  “Which way?” he asked Robi. She consulted the compass, then headed off toward the west side of Sharpsburg.

  “Try to keep up, boys,” she called over her rapidly vanishing shoulder.

  Hickok had no trouble following Robi with his long, ground-eating strides, but John had to break into a trot several times. Whatever effect the Paragon Elixir was supposed to have on him, it clearly was taking its time. By the time Robi stopped in front of a shabby, two-story warehouse John was winded and sweating.

  “Let me take a look,” Robi said. Hickok looked like he would protest but she went on. “Solomon knows you; if he sees me on the street, he won’t give me a second look.”

  Wild Bill considered this for a moment, then gave a curt nod that sent Robi off like a shot. She disappeared around the side of the warehouse and John unconsciously held his breath. He was finally forced to gasp for air after a minute but still Robi failed to appear.

  “All right,” Hickok said, loosening his gun in its holster. “She must be in trouble, let’s go get her.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Robi said from behind them, close enough to make John jump. He wasn’t the only one taken by surprise. Hickok whirled and had his gun halfway out before recognizing the speaker.

  Robi had changed into a boiler suit, a rough, leather coverall that protected workers from furnace sparks, hot pipes, and steam leaks. She had a brown bundle slung over her back, held in place by a length of rope over her shoulder.

  “Solomon’s airship is docked behind the warehouse,” she said, setting down her bundle. “Another airship is inside and men in boiler suits are moving the cargo.” She unrolled the bundle, revealing two more suits like she wore. “I’d have been back sooner, but I had to pick these up.”

  “Where …” Hickok began but decided to let it drop. He took off his duster and donned the suit, placing his folded coat inside before zipping it up.

  John struggled into the suit Robi had provided. Boiler suits only came in one size, big, and he had to tie the arm and leg cinches around his wrists and ankles to keep it in place. He wondered how she was maneuvering so easily in hers. Once they were done, Hickok turned to Robi.

  “So how do we get in?”

  Robi smiled, acknowledging Hickok’s admission that he needed her and nodded toward the back of the warehouse.

  “There’s a door in back,” she said. “Once we’re inside, we’ll just mingle with the workers and slip on board the buyer’s airship.”

  “Just like that?” John asked. “Won’t someone notice?”

  Robi rolled her eyes.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Whoever they are, they obviously feel safe; that’s why Solomon had to come here. Don’t worry,” she went on, leading them around to the back of the warehouse. “Loading an airship is boring. No one’s watching.”

  O O O

  Derek Morgan was watching.

  From the moment the Shokhlar had given him this task he’d been uneasy. Something about Solomon having trouble had bothered him. When he finally met the man and heard that he’d had a run-in with an enforcer, he felt justified. An enforcer meant the Alliance was interfering after all, and just because they didn’t send warships didn’t mean they wouldn’t try to take the Vengeance if they could. Even a single enforcer was a danger.

  “You sure they’re dead?” he asked of Solomon for the fifth time.

  “In the Builder’s name, Morgan, give it a rest,” Solomon said in impatient frustration. “Even if they’re not, there’s nothing for them to go back to. I perfected the Ravager serum! By now every leaker in Piston Falls has become a flesh-eating monster.”

  Solomon chuckled and Morgan had to resist the impulse to slug him. He understood that necessity drove them to do business with all kinds of people, but Professor Solomon was a particularly repugnant specimen. There was no denying he was brilliant, the kind of man who could have done great things, but he seemed to take pleasure in the suffering of others. Morgan guessed that it was what drove him to study leakers, not to help them, but to make their misery greater.

  It seemed that, on that front, he had succeeded.

  Morgan shuddered involuntarily and returned his gaze to the work at hand. Several dozen men in boiler suits were using wheeled dollies to move drums of flux from Solomon’s hold to his airship. Each three-man team worked smoothly, hauling their barrels to the hold, then returning for more, carrying their dollies as they went. The effect was a caterpillar-like line of barrels crawling between the two ships. At the rate they were moving, his transport airship would be loaded and ready to fly within the hour.

  He’d watched the loading carefully, vigilant of any signs that something was amiss. So far the only thing he found was a few of the workmen who were smaller than the others, but Morgan didn’t put it past Solomon to hire cheap child labor. Everything was as it should be.

  So what was that incessant warning in the back of his mind?

  “Did I tell you who the Alliance sent to meddle in my business?” Solomon said, his voice dripping with eager anticipation.

  Morgan didn’t care in the least but it seemed he’d have no peace from the disgusting little man until he’d said his piece.

  “Wh
o?”

  “Wild Bill Hickok.”

  The nagging whispers in Morgan’s subconscious suddenly became shouts of alarm. He left Solomon staring, standing on the catwalk in the middle of his story, while Morgan bolted down the stairs to the warehouse floor.

  Startled into action by their leader’s sudden movement, the guards Morgan had brought came running, weapons at the ready.

  “Secure the ship,” he shouted, waving them back. “No one goes on board until I’ve checked everyone.”

  As his guards retreated, Derek Morgan moved up and down the line of identically clad workmen, looking each of them in the face. For their part the workmen regarded him with the bored looks of sheep whose grazing has suddenly been interrupted. The faces were young and old, tired and sweating, but none of them were familiar.

  None of them were Wild Bill Hickok.

  “I told you he’s dead!” Solomon said. He’d come down from his observation post and followed Morgan on his tour of the workmen and now stood, leaning against a post. Morgan waved the workmen back into action, then reluctantly joined Solomon.

  “You said there was someone with him?”

  Solomon shrugged.

  “An interesting young man,” he said. “Talented. Too talented to be left alive.”

  Morgan remembered the lad. Talented was right, and bright. Morgan had liked him.

  “He’s dead too?”

  Solomon grinned a psychotic leer. It made Morgan’s skin crawl.

  “I sincerely hope not,” Solomon said. “I injected him with the Ravager serum.”

  Morgan reigned his temper into check. The Shokhlar needed this toad of a man and he would not endanger that relationship by running Professor Solomon through. No matter how seriously he was tempted.

  “So you see,” Solomon went on. “You have nothing to fear from Wild Bill Hickok and his talented minion.”

  Morgan could see them both in his mind’s eye. Hickok was a worthy opponent, too worthy, it turned out. Morgan had taken steps to make sure the enforcer wouldn’t beat him again, but now he would never know how such a rematch would fare.

  “What was the boy’s name?” he asked, suddenly unable to recall it.

  “I don’t remember,” Solomon said, and shrugged again, uncaring.

  “What about the girl?”

  Solomon’s lax face suddenly tightened into a mask of shrewdness, his beady eyes darting back and forth.

  “There wasn’t any girl,” he said at last.

  The alarm bells in Morgan’s head began ringing again. Robirah Laryn was the daughter of Hiro Laryn, one of the most dangerous men who ever lived. He was a living shadow who could go anywhere and steal anything. Nothing was safe from the thief known as the Cat. From what Morgan had heard, his daughter had learned some of her father’s skills.

  What if she had been there? Seen what Solomon did? It would be child’s play for the daughter of Hiro Laryn to sneak aboard his airship and follow him here.

  How hard would it be for her to leave Solomon’s ship and board his own amidst all the commotion of the workmen?

  Child’s play.

  There wasn’t anything he could do about it now. If he searched his ship, she would only flee, melting into the streets of Sharpsburg like the Cat she was.

  But, in the air, after he’d left the city, there she’d be trapped with no escape route. If Robirah Laryn was on board, he’d have a prize to offer his master, and if not, then the refueling of the Vengeance would go off without a hitch.

  He smiled.

  Derek Morgan was a practical man, and either way suited him fine.

  Chapter 27

  The Calm

  The Prophet puffed his cigar and watched the smoke drift lazily away. He sat comfortably on his patio overlooking the city of Castle Rock. The fleets of airships that had crowded the sky for days were finally gone, having fled the city’s impending doom. The streets and shops, formerly choked with humanity, were empty. Even the wind was gone.

  A pregnant hush hung in the air, as if the city was holding its breath.

  He didn’t need to be psychic to sense the tension; it was everywhere, pressing in on him like a weight. He set his cigar aside and took a deep breath to clear his senses, then pushed his mind outward. Instantly the worries, fears, and terrors of the people in the city assaulted him, breaking over him like a wave. Steadying himself, he pushed onward, past the city into the desert plains and mountains to the east.

  Somewhere.

  Somewhere out there, hovering over a vast, empty plain, doom was coming. He’d searched for them, the volcano makers, pressing his mind outward to its limits, but found nothing. Whoever built the volcano device had somehow shielded it, and the minds that worked it, from his probing.

  No small feat.

  He broke his concentration with an exasperated grunt. He picked up his cigar and chewed it for a quarter hour before noticing it had gone out.

  There had to be a way to find them.

  There simply had to be.

  I will not let that man beat me. He may be the greatest Architect since Franklin, but I am the world’s most powerful psychic. He cannot hide from me.

  He grabbed the unlit cigar from his mouth and threw it over the side of the balcony in irritation. Straightening in his chair he drew in his breath and pushed his mind out again, sweeping his thoughts over the vast emptiness of desert, mountain, and plain.

  Searching.

  He tried focusing his mind, sharpening his thoughts in an effort to penetrate the shield that prevented him from finding the outlaw Derek Morgan or his associate Sira Corven. The attempt left him exhausted and yielded nothing. Gasping from the exertion, the Prophet slumped down and let his mind drift, unfocused. Thousands of minds touched his. Little minds, of fowls and beasts, covering the desert floor and the mountain passes in a carpet of life that stretched on and … and …

  Nothing.

  Suddenly and without warning, minds that he touched were extinguished. Vanished as if they had never been.

  The Prophet’s drifting mind snapped back to attention, focusing on the empty space. It was big and it was moving. As his mind reached out, he could feel the emptiness sliding across the land, and the tide of life disappearing as it went and reappearing behind it.

  The volcano maker’s shield.

  It blocked out everything.

  The Prophet laughed at the realization. His enemy might remain hidden behind his shield, but he was still as easy to spot as a drop of oil in a bowl of water. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see them easily. They were moving closer, and quickly. The Prophet estimated they’d arrive within a day. Worse, if the area of the shield was any indication, their ship was enormous, three times the size of the Alliance’s biggest battleship.

  He withdrew his mind, coming back to himself. Clearly the volcano makers were done waiting for the Alliance to accede to their demands. The Prophet knew that no word nor help would come from the Alliance. He, and the people of Castle Rock, were on their own.

  Hickok had reported that he might have a way to sneak onto the enemy ship, but even as formidable as Wild Bill was, what could he do against such a massive ship and the men who crewed her?

  “Courage,” he said aloud. If any man was up to the challenge, it was Wild Bill.

  He reached out for the silver bell that sat on the table and shook it once. It emitted a series of tiny chimes that were being mirrored by a sympathetic crystal in the house. Before he’d even set the bell down, Alistair stood at his elbow.

  The man was a treasure.

  “Send word to the mayor that the volcano makers are on their way here,” he said, withdrawing a fresh cigar from the pocket of his coat. “I suspect their airship will be here tomorrow morning. Tell His Honor to have the defense guns ready and crewed by then.”

  If this news was upsetting or disturbing to Alistair, he gave no sign. He only gave a brief bow and said, “Very good, sir.”“

  The Prophet lit his cigar as the so
und of Alistair’s footsteps faded away.

  Tomorrow would be an interesting day.

  O O O

  The transport airship Flintlock shuddered as its propellers drove it onward at maximum velocity. Derek Morgan had insisted that they make speed back to the Vengeance and now the massive airship was in sight. A gust of wind hit the transport, driving it briefly off course, and Morgan glared at the young helmsman.

  To be fair, the man knew his business, but Morgan was in a foul mood and felt the need to take it out on someone.

  “Get us docked quickly,” he snapped at the helmsman, then left the bridge.

  He wanted nothing more than to be back aboard the Vengeance, but he was worried. Something about his meeting with the insane Professor Solomon still bothered him. It shouldn’t; he’d searched the Flintlock from stem to stern and found nothing, but still the nagging feeling that something was amiss plagued him.

  Derek Morgan hadn’t gotten to be the chief priest of the Mimbrae by ignoring those feelings.

  The Flintlock bucked and dropped suddenly, landing hard on the deck of the Vengeance. A moment later the loading ramp dropped down and Morgan strode off the Flintlock into one of the Vengeance’s seven airship bays. This one opened out on the top side of the ship and sunlight streamed in through the opening, illuminating the bay and those who had assembled.

  Sira stood at the base of the ramp along with a young Tommy handler. Behind them a dozen Tommys stood silently, the stacks on their shoulders trailing wisps of smoke as they awaited the command to unload the Flintlock’s cargo of flux.

  “Your Eminence,” Sira said, bowing low. The Tommy handler bowed as well.

  “Have the cargo unloaded immediately,” he instructed the handler, then turned to Sira. “Something’s not right. Watch the unloading, then search this airship. If you find anyone or anything out of place, inform me immediately.”

  Sira bowed again and Morgan swept by her. It irritated him to involve Sira; she was already too full of herself for her own good, but she was competent. If there was something to find, she would find it, and he had important matters to attend to. The Shokhlar had put him in charge and he needed to report in. Derek Morgan was not a man to fail in his duty.