Arachnodactyl

by Danny Knestaut

  He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. The words seemed so unnecessary. What did it matter to Rose that airships plied the sky, much less how they got up there? It wasn’t part of her world, her existence. It was what others did. The sighted. Their eyes put to use because they had them.

  Someone cleared his throat.

  Ikey opened his eyes.

  “You all right?” Rob asked from beside the loading door. His fingers were threaded into his hip pockets, thumbs hooked over his belt.

  Ikey nodded.

  Before Rob said more, Ikey turned away and headed towards the exit, drifting along as if several feet of space separated him from the floor as well. Rose was nothing like the people about him, whether she was made of flesh and blood or iron and twine. She might as well be something altogether different; neither human nor machine, but a creature as alien to this world and the people in it as he was himself.

  As he stepped out of the hangar, a light drizzle settled over Ikey’s skin and clothes. The town spread out before him. Off to his left, the sea sat gray and unimpressed with the town, the trawlers, the birds raking the sky overhead.

  He could close his eyes and make it all disappear for a moment. There would be nothing except his breath and the drizzle on his skin like the ghosts of thousands of fingers combing through the heat rising off his body. The sounds were there: the growling of wheels on cobblestones; a chugging steam carriage; distant train whistle; birds. A hand bell rung in long, slow strokes at the end of a costermonger’s arm. Everything blended together with a twist of the mind and became nothing more than the senseless machinations of dozens of music boxes tuning into the quivering world.

  Ikey inhaled deeply. Salt tanged the air. Coal smoke singed it. It sat down in his lungs like cold syrup.

  Admiral Daughton’s words climbed out of the murk. He would be free of Cross. And set loose from Rose.

  Ikey’s eyes opened on the world. He waited for the enormity of the situation to catch up, to crash down onto his shoulders, to pull and twist at his hair and kick at the backs of his knees until he fell to the ground.

  But it didn’t come. He watched a bedraggled dog with damp, dark fur trot down the road, eager to be someplace else. The realization refused to strike.

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets and started toward Cross’s house.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As he traversed the streets, what to tell Rose escaped Ikey. It flitted down the street ahead of him, slipping between and dodging around the people out on afternoon business. After the disaster of the previous night, it might be a relief to both Rose and Cross to hear he was leaving. The harder thing to tell Rose would be about his replacement of Cross.

  Ikey stopped in the street. A man brushed past him and forced Ikey to adjust his balance. He stepped towards the window of a storefront. His reflection stood between him and shelves of ointments and balms and tonics for sale. His dark reflection punched a human-shaped hole in the muted street-scene behind him, as if he wasn’t anything more than a portal, a passage between the inside and the outside. A door.

  How had all this happened? When he stopped to think about it, it was positively ludicrous to put him in charge of the ship. It made no sense at all. Was Admiral Daughton attempting to show Cross up, as Cross had tried to show Ikey up? He shook his head. Unlikely. The admiral had no incentive to show up Cross. Except for pride, maybe? No. Money held Admiral Daughton’s interest. When he spoke to Ikey’s dad, he spoke not of pride or accomplishment, but money. It was what motivated him, and what he expected others to be motivated by.

  For that matter, why had he offered so much for Ikey’s help, anyway? Five pounds to start. A pound a week. It was more than a trifle to pay a common laborer. That may have upset the admiral when he found Ikey in the crew quarters. It was money wasted.

  No. There was something else. Something didn’t sit right. If the situation was a machine, the balance would throw everything off. The parts would wear themselves down. Grind. Break.

  But then again, Ikey had raised the ship when Cross couldn’t. Perhaps Admiral Daughton saw the potential in Ikey when no one else could.

  Ikey turned from his reflection and its brimming promises of smoothing wrinkles and boosting vitality. Across the river and above the town, the ancient ruins of Whitby Abbey stood like a callous worn onto the town by the passing of time. Sharp had spoken of it with pride, presenting it as something his town possessed and others didn’t and couldn’t get.

  Had Rose visited it? Had she ever climbed the 99 stairs to the top of the valley and walked among the ruins? Had she laid hands upon the remaining stone walls? Were they any different to her touch than any other stone? How did time move for her if she could not step back and see the aggregate effects of it wear like lines on a face?

  Ikey moved on. If he put Cross out of a job, what would become of Rose? It was rare for a blind woman to work outside of the home. And regardless of the numerous charitable organizations around town that advertised their causes with rallies and flyers, it seemed unlikely that Rose would accept their charity.

  And what of Cross? He had a deep mean streak in him. How would he react? Would he take it out on Rose? Ikey’s dad would have. Without question.

  Ikey slipped his hands into his pockets, took a deep breath, and tried to tamp down his mind. With the uncountable people teeming through the streets, one of them ought to have some answers to his questions. Or all of them thinking together. But that wasn’t how things were done. All of them were isolated and on their own tasks, their own minds. He tried to imagine a machine that operated like people—a machine that completed thousands of tasks that rarely had anything to do with each other. And as he plotted it out, the machine grew in size and scope until it filled buildings and overran fields. The work it produced delved into chaos. It collapsed under its own weight, its own force.

  Disrupt the machinery.

  If Ikey refused to take the position, or if he simply failed to produce the promised plans, then Admiral Daughton would have to reevaluate his decision to replace Cross.

  Ikey stopped again. Before long, Cross would find out what had happened. Ikey set course for Turk’s Head.

  At the pub, Ikey had no difficulty picking Cross out from the few men washed up at the bar like bits of driftwood. He was the longest, skinniest piece.

  “Hello, Love,” Willa said from behind the bar. She pointed at Ikey and leaned towards Cross. “Looks like your shadow is back.”

  Cross turned around. Upon sight of Ikey, he slapped his palm to his forehead and dragged it over the long expanse of his face. “Bloody Nora. What the hell is going on now?”

  Ikey brushed through the cloud of alcohol fumes and sat on the stool beside Cross.

  The barman stopped in front of Ikey. “What can I get you?”

  Ikey held up his palms and shook his head.

  “Get him a whiskey,” Cross said. He tilted over towards Ikey. “If you’re going to sit at a bar, you’re going to drink.”

  The barman set a glass before him and poured an ounce of whiskey into it.

  “Thanks,” Ikey said to the glass.

  Cross placed his elbow on the bar, then planted his fist against his cheek. “You’re not drinking.”

  Willa tsked. “Where’d you get the awful shiner, love?”

  Ikey nudged his head in Cross’s direction.

  Willa’s jaw dropped. She smacked Cross across the top of his head. “How could you!”

  Cross leaned back out of Willa’s reach. “Oy! The little bugger popped me first.”

  “Is that true?” Willa asked Ikey.

  Ikey nodded and looked to the bar. “Yes.”

  She smacked him across the head. Ikey ducked, shoulders drawn up against further blows.

  “Serves you right, then! What the hell’d you go and hit him for? Don’t you know it ain’t proper to go about hitting people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cut him some slack, Willa,” Cross said. He lean
ed forward and propped himself on his elbows. “It ain’t his fault. They ain’t got a lick of common decency out in The Dales.”

  Willa smacked Cross upside the head again. “I can see why he popped you. And if you lay a hand on his pretty little face again, I swear to the Lord above, your balls will end up in the sausage grinder.”

  “That’d be an improvement on the sausage,” Cross spat.

  “You!” Willa huffed, then hurried off to see to the one customer at the only occupied table.

  The barman leaned in toward Ikey. “Next time, be sure to use his height against him. When he throws the punch, duck and run forward. Get him in the gut, the knees, the groin. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” He winked and stood back up. A sneer crossed his face as he nodded at Cross.

  Cross punched Ikey in the shoulder. He gripped the edge of the bar to keep himself from falling.

  “Dammit, man! You’re at a bar. Drink.”

  Ikey grabbed the glass and took a sip. His face curdled at the burn of the whiskey. It tasted far more toxic than Cross’s scotch.

  Cross and the barman howled with laughter. To hell with Cross. But what kept Ikey perched atop the barstool was a determination to save Rose from suffering.

  Once Cross slapped the bar a couple times and settled down to a chuckle, he asked Ikey what the hell he came and found him for.

  “It’s the ship,” Ikey said.

  Cross hung his head. “I can only imagine.”

  “It flew.”

  Cross squinted at Ikey. “It flew.”

  Ikey nodded. “It was off the ground. All of it. The whole thing.”

  “How far?”

  “Several feet. There was no slack in the mooring ropes.”

  Cross smiled, shook his head, and swallowed the last of his drink. “You’re messing with me. I don’t appreciate it.”

  “No, it’s true. I had the crew unload everything they could carry. The lumber. Tools. Everything. And I set 14 lanterns to burning under the hydrolysis converter. The flames—”

  Cross backhanded Ikey across the mouth. He flew off the stool and collapsed to the floor. His head rang off the wood.

  “Dammit, Cross!” Willa cried. “What did I just tell you?”

  “That’s enough,” the barman said, though Ikey couldn’t tell to whom he spoke.

  Cross towered over Ikey. “You little shit! You lit lanterns underneath the converter? While it was bloody-well running?”

  Ikey pushed himself onto his elbows. “It worked—”

  “You could have blown the whole damned thing up and killed everyone inside! You buggering idiot! You daft, simpering fool! Don’t you know that thing is filled with flammable gas?”

  “I didn’t blow it up.” Ikey staggered to his feet, his eyes locked on Cross, and the barman’s questionable advice kept in mind. “It worked. And Admiral Daughton saw it.”

  The fight dropped like a cape from Cross’s shoulders.

  Ikey ran his fingers over his upper lip. Despite the throbbing pain, no blood streaked his touch. “He wants me to draw up plans. Plans for an alternate design that doesn’t use open flame.”

  Cross dropped down onto the bar stool. “You little shit. You set me up. I’d have expected something like this from Wendy. But you?”

  Ikey grunted. “Set you up? Why’d you leave me in charge?”

  Cross rubbed his forehead. “I wanted Wendy and the crew to give you a hard time. Show you that your britches aren’t as big as you like to think.”

  Ikey swallowed, unsure of what to make of Cross’s comment.

  “Admiral Daughton wants me to replace you,” Ikey said.

  Cross’s hand dropped away from his face. “Best of luck to you, then. Keep an eye on Wendy. Can’t trust him any more than he can make use of that rubbish waistcoat. And Rob, you can trust that man with your life if you ask him about his kids.”

  Cross turned away and asked for another drink.

  It was not the reaction Ikey had expected. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs and gulped down a breath of air, his nose too congested to breathe through.

  “I’m suppose to bring Admiral Daughton some plans tomorrow,” Ikey said. “For a new engine design. I won’t. I’ll say I couldn’t come up with anything.”

  Cross slipped a half crown from his waistcoat and flipped it onto the bar. It birled in the dim light. He picked up his drink and looked back at Ikey. “Why would you do that?”

  Ikey straightened his back. “If I can’t come up with the design, Admiral Daughton will give you a second chance. You can have your job back.”

  Cross snickered over his drink, then sipped it before setting it back. “What makes you think I want a second chance? What makes you think I want the bloody job at all?”

  Ikey rubbed his palms along his thigh again. “Rose.”

  Cross sneered and shook his head. The barman suddenly found something interesting to examine under the bar.

  “Rose? Rose. What the hell does Rose have to do with any of this? Is she on the crew now? You hiring her to be the crew pecker-holder?”

  Ikey rushed forward, hands clenched into fists. Cross swept his arm off the bar and clocked Ikey upside the head. His momentum still carried him forward, and he crashed into Cross’s pointy knees. The wind knocked from him, Ikey slumped to the floor.

  Cross grabbed Ikey by front of his shirt, hauled him up, and slammed his back against the bar. He towered over Ikey, hunched forward so that his bloodshot eyes and sour breath hovered over his face.

  “I’ve had it with your shenanigans,” Cross said. “If you can’t behave any better than a common ruffian, you won’t be heading the crew for long. But it’s your bloody problem now. Get your things out of my house. When I get back there this evening, I expect to see no sign that you was ever there. Got it?”

  Ikey nodded.

  “Good.” Cross stepped back. He pulled Ikey to his feet and brushed imaginary dust off Ikey’s shoulders. “You want to finish your drink first? It’s paid for.”

  Ikey slipped past Cross and towards the door.

  “Willa,” Cross called out, “see what I put up with?”

  Ikey was out the door before he heard Willa’s response.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Outside the Turk’s Head, Ikey’s fingers clutched at his hair and pulled. The urge to grunt strained at his teeth. If released, the grunt would rise to a scream and collar the attention of everyone on the street. A number of people cast sideways glances and gave him a wide berth. Others ignored him. Others stared. They watched Ikey as they strolled past, and their eyes and expressions roamed over him. The edges of their lips turned up and they gave slight nods to themselves as if Ikey’s anguished, unshaven face and black eye outside of the pub offered incontrovertible proof of a long-standing belief.

  Ikey hurried away, fists jammed into pockets and his gaze ploughing through the stones beneath his feet. The judgment of others pressed against him; a thick smoke that worked its way into his clothes and skin.

  The darkness of Cross’s house would be sorely missed. In his room at the hotel, he’d have thick curtains drawn against the light. He would blot out the world and its people. Bastards. Lunatics.

  Ikey wished he had a coat to draw around himself, a collar to turn up and a hat to pull low over his head. He hurried on and thought of lying on the bed in the hotel, the light pushed back and barricaded.

  By the time he reached Cross’s house, he had no clue as to what he might tell Rose. She might not want to hear a thing beyond the fact that he was leaving—kicked out by Cross. She might even be delighted to hear he had replaced Cross at the shipyard. Who knew? Cross’s reaction had certainly differed from what he had expected.

  Ikey approached the house from the back alley. He hauled himself over the back wall. This time, he had no audience, and he dropped into the yard unnoticed. He let himself in to the workshop.

  On the table sat a mechanical spider. Eight legs held its body off the table. T
he contents of the thing’s abdomen lay exposed. Ikey examined the intricate workings. Unlike the music boxes, there were definite gears and coils of spring inside like the works of a watch.

  He picked the spider up. It covered his hand. He turned it over and found a small fob along the bottom of its abdomen. As he gave it a couple of twists, the spider’s legs worked back and forth in tandem, and a thin, tinny song leaked like salt from it.

  Ikey gave the fob a few more twists and set the spider back down. It crawled along the tabletop and sang its trickling song. When it approached the edge of the table, Ikey snatched it up and held it until the the pent-up energy of the springs bled out through the legs. Finally, it rested still and quiet in his hands as if it had passed away.

  He returned the spider to where he had found it. As he looked away, his eyes caught sight of a spider’s web in the corner of the room, strung above the pile of junk. In the center of the web, a large, brown spider waited.

  Ikey looked at the mechanical version, then back to the spider.

  “He doesn’t understand, either, does he?” Ikey asked the spider.

  The spider neither answered nor moved as Ikey shoved aside a few boxes on the shelves. He pulled the mechanical arm out where he could examine it. He plucked the strings and bands and watched as it aped the movements of Cross’s wife—but the wife Cross saw. The one visible in light. The one he tried to understand by observation and replication. The one that Rose hated.

  Ikey replaced the arm and removed what he needed from the tool chest under the table.

  “A word of advice,” Ikey said to the spider, “don’t try to do him any favors.”

  Ikey slipped out to the back door and lowered himself to his knees. Within a minute, the tumblers in the lock clicked and Ikey pulled his tools from the keyhole. He pushed the door open on its creaking hinges and stepped inside.

  “Rose?” Ikey called out. He stepped through to the dining room. “Rose?”

  “Ikey?” Rose called from the kitchen.

  Ikey smiled, then recalled why he was there.