by R J Theodore
Sophie and Tisker exchanged looks.
Tisker furrowed his brows. “Okay. So it’s Wind Sabre. I get why you’d think we’d be tempted. But today is Nayasturn, and the heist is days away. Bill will be back on Helsturn.”
“Yeah, there’s been a complication with that too.”
There was a light murmur of fabric as everyone shifted around her. “What complication, Cap?”
“Docks are super busy. Like Bill told us the other day, the borders are open, and everyone’s headed for the big to-do at Diadem. Which means more docking fees, more customs fees, more rush fees, all piling into our catch bin.”
“And we need to compensate for that weight.”
“That, Soph, but also, to keep up, Nisa’s running the accounts nightly. Starting day after tomorrow.”
“And a Rakkar accountant ain’t about to miss the absence of those kinds of profits. Five hells.” Tisker said it out loud, but their faces all reflected it. So much of their take was supposed to be the money from the docks, siphoned off right up until the eve before their great escape.
Dug cleared the dust from his throat. “We need to smuggle the money back into the vaults.”
Talis lifted the keys from her pocket. “That’s not the problem. We can shut off the system and return the money before the docks open for business tomorrow. The problem is the sudden drop in the payout of this job unless we can figure out how to get into the vault itself.”
Tisker sat on the edge of the bed as if his legs weren’t going to hold him up any longer. “Okay, that does make that salvage job look a bit shinier.”
“How are those ship’s plans coming along, Soph?” Talis indicated the hiding spot beneath the bed with a tilt of her head and a slight dip of her chin. “We fish out our money from Wind Sabre’s belly, and after it’s done, we could be headed straight for Subrosa and Jones’s shipyard.”
Sophie’s neck stiffened with realization. Some complicated emotion rendered itself in the lift of her eyebrows and the wrinkle of her nose. The potential, true potential, of this payout. What it would bring them.
Dug shook his head. “What does this anonymous client want?”
The voice of reason as ever, Dug reined things back around to the true measure of the two jobs: the consequences.
“The list includes a little bit of everything, however many Yu’Nyun ships we have to search.”
Tisker looked up at her with a jolt, mouth slightly open. He knew what cargo would make Talis hesitate to fill that order. They all did.
She nodded. “Yeah, they know about the simula. And they want four of them.”
“Four simula? Can’t be coincidence that there are four rings left.” Sophie placed the alien tablet down on the table as though it had gone slimy. The woodgrain showed through the translucent display beneath some sort of blinking notification. She crossed her arms on Dug’s chair back, resting her chin on the top of his head. Dug leaned back into her until they were balancing against each other. One of the feathers that swept back from his forehead brushed her face, and she wrinkled her nose and lips, resettling herself to avoid it.
“No one is supposed to know about the simula except us, The Five, the aliens, and the Veritors.” She chewed her bottom lip.
Talis nodded. “That’s swirling round my mind too.”
Tisker looked on the verge of a pout. “You knew we couldn’t trust it before you brought this home. Why did you?”
In trying not to make a comment about the word ‘home,’ which felt like a nettle under her collar, Talis grabbed at the next available response that whirled by. “Because unlike the other offer, this one doesn’t put a yoke around our necks.”
As soon as the words were loose, she realized what she’d confessed. What she’d hidden from them for so long that she had forgotten it was a secret. Sophie stiffened. Tisker squinted at her. She closed her eyes and cursed her sloppy tongue.
“What other offer?” Danger coursed through Dug’s syllables. His gaze fixed on her.
Talis stifled a retort that would have sent the conversation in a sinistral spiral. But maybe it was already spiraling. She took a deep breath through her nose.
“There’s also been a standing offer from Onaya.”
“Which is?” Dug’s voice was thin. Flat. Talis would have felt better if he’d yelled and bared steel.
“She’ll give us a fleet of Bone ships to command, delivered here as soon as we agree to serve her. Salvage the alien ships—because of course everyone wants in on the salvage—to get her a simula. Then do whatever it would take to get her the rings. Help her go after Meran and get her powers back.”
Tisker released a derisive snort. “Oh, that’s all.”
Dug said nothing.
“And after,” asked Sophie. “How long’s our service to her?”
“Indefinite.” Talis hadn’t been worried that Tisker and Sophie would want to take the offer. “That’s assuming that Onaya isn’t behind this new offer, too, of course. But her offers never came with paper contracts.”
Tisker swore, blaspheming the goddess’s name, though his creative anatomical pun had more to do with his way of processing enormous surprises than a commentary on this specific deity. He didn’t see the look Dug shot him for it; his gaze was fixed on Talis.
“When were you going to tell us?”
Talis shrugged. “Would it have added anything to our lives except pressure we don’t need?”
“Would have let up on it for you, a bit.” Sophie looked exasperated and sad all at once. “Weight’s easier on four pairs of shoulders.”
Talis couldn’t argue that point. “I’m more than a little bit done with The Divine Alchemists and their divine errands. Thought I spoke for all of us, when I turned her offer down.”
Dug inhaled, and rubbed his palms on his pant legs, as though to dry them. “You do.”
Talis was glad she was sitting, or she was certain her knees would buckle. Her eyes stung, and she swallowed.
Tisker stood up and put on the kettle. Talis didn’t tell him she’d already had enough of tea for one day. “So, with everything you were keeping to yourself—and I’m not saying I don’t get your reasons, Cap—but what’s it about this job that seemed better than all that? You smell the blood on it. I know you do.”
She nodded to confirm his suspicion. “I . . .” She had to clear her throat and try again. “It’s the ‘what if’ of it, I guess. The heist feels like it’s getting risky; then along comes a well-oiled salvage operation that gets us the money we need to get back to our lives, without risk of arrest or indenturing ourselves to Onaya. We could be done, and we wouldn’t owe a damned soul a damned thing.”
Sophie gathered cups for the tea, then came close to Talis’s seat, her hip leaning against her captain’s arm. She spoke as if it was just the two of them in the room. “So, you want to do it? This new offer?”
Any sort of answer caught in Talis’s throat.
“Wish we knew the client.” Tisker worked his jaw as though he were rolling the idea around on his tongue. “Would tip the balance of it, really.”
Talis sighed, took the mug offered by Sophie, and held it beneath her nose, closing her eyes.
“Yeah,” she admitted after a moment. “That’s the crux of this. We’d be putting a lot of technological power into who-knows-whose hands, and it’s too big a thing to assume we know who that might be.”
“Because if we’re wrong,” Sophie continued, “and it’s not a Vein client. If the Veritors or the Yu have gotten hold of another ring or something?”
Talis nodded. “Lots of pieces falling too neatly into place out there, between the borders and the coronation, this Eneil person, and Onaya. If we weren’t on this rock without a way off, I can’t say I’d even be considering it.”
“We have a way.” Dug flicked at a corner of the communication tablet with the tip
of one fingernail. The glowing lines disappeared, and the display went dark. “I know it comes with risks, Talis, but it does the least harm.”
Talis looked to Tisker, to Sophie. Sophie shifted, finally took a sip of her tea. “So if Eneil won’t say who they work for, we pass?”
“A vote,” Talis said.
“Don’t need it. Cap, we’re good. We pass. If Dug says we pass, we pass.”
Talis watched their faces. There was no doubt. No regret. Jaws were set, eyes were focused and clear.
“All right, then. We pass.”
Dug shifted. “There is something else we have to discuss.”
He’d said that earlier, hadn’t he? Before she told her own tale, he’d said they needed to talk. She put the tea down, comfort dispelled. “All right.”
“Today there was someone watching me during my shift.”
“Define ‘someone.’ Your manager? City watch?”
He shook his head. “Another worker, a new hire.”
Talis thought of Tisker’s lovestruck chef. “Any chance he’s just smitten?”
Dug frowned. “The energy was not like that. He watched me like a sarrowfiend watches its prey.”
That anyone could make Dug feel like prey was alarming. “How do we adjust our plans?”
“I do not believe we need to, yet. But we should be aware that someone is aware of us.”
Too aware. Eneil, Onaya, this stranger in the mines. “All right. Watch him back, I guess. Let us know if anything changes. You still get up into the shafts today?”
Dug nodded. “The anchors are in place in the vents, ready for the grapple cannons and their payloads.”
“Good. Anyone else with bad news?”
Tisker shifted.
“Gods, really?” Talis pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“We’re not the only ones on high alert today.” Tisker looked guilty. “The mayor and her team met in the lounge during lunch. Heard her say they’re tripling the city watch because of all the new traffic.”
Sophie paused with a swallow of tea still in her mouth and had to force it back. “Fantastic. The tourists are going to blow this for us.”
“Or serve as a distraction.” Talis inhaled and exhaled manually. “Doesn’t mean anything other than to be as careful as we have already planned to be. Keep our timing tight to the central clock, no surprises.”
“Except the vaults.” Sophie sat down on the bed beside Tisker and leaned back on her elbows. “What do we do about that?”
“Well, Dug and I need to reverse the diverted vacuum system tonight. I’ll return the funds in our catch basin in the morning. As for getting into the vault itself, Nisa said something about having me help her. I brushed it off at the time because I was startled by the news, but if I can press for that—get her to let me help—then I get a look at the inside of them, the locks, the guard rotation, alarms. Might still be a way to get our full take.”
Tisker looked twitchy, but he’d already finished the sewing. “That’s a pretty big adjustment to the plan. Gala’s coming up on us like a pair of short britches.”
Their equipment was packed up, in three cross-body sacks leaning next to the door. They’d made the bags from the scraps Kirna had sent home from Amos’s laboratory with Sophie over the years—ruined lab coats, torn sweaters, stained skirts, and the like—all victims of the dangerous alchemical experiments going on in their lab. The sturdier items were made to hold Sophie’s inventions. All ready to go, minus these new developments.
Talis smiled. Now that the crew had made their decision, her focus settled back over her like a blanket on her nerves. “I’ve cased places out in less time than we’ll have. That negates having to deal with the vacuum system and gives me time to manage whatever needs to be done to get us inside.”
Every heist Talis had ever done ran into complications, needed adjustments and last-minute fiddling. So many moving parts, Talis would have felt less at ease if it looked like it was going to run exactly as planned.
She and Dug left Tisker to clean up from dinner and Sophie to leave for her evening work while they snuck back to the refuse tunnel that ran parallel to the island’s delivery junctions, near the tubes that transported the profits from the big week at the docks to the sealed vaults below.
The breach they’d made in the tunnel wall was out of sight behind a trash container. Dug helped Talis move it out far enough for her to crawl behind, then took watch as she disassembled Sophie’s electrical work at the junction where the deposit traffic from the shops and banks joined the main tube. Capsules from the other areas continued to zoom by every few minutes as she worked, careful not to cause any disruptions that would have someone coming to investigate.
Once Talis had confirmed that the week’s accounts had been balanced, they’d sealed off the dock line from the pressurized system. Somehow, after meeting with Eneil, Talis had managed to retain the presence of mind to turn off the patched-in vacuum she’d installed in the woods beyond the dock office.
Now Talis reconnected the tube to the main system and released the valve. The tubes squealed and sputtered as the system repressurized. She quickly scrambled to bleed the extra air from the system the way Sophie had told her to, her pulse racing. She didn’t realize it would have such noisy symptoms. As it vented, she looked over her shoulder at the tension in Dug’s shoulders, but he didn’t turn around. A moment later, it was as though they’d never been there, save for the hole in the tunnel wall. They replaced the trash container, and with that, aborted the easy, quiet theft of the dock’s vacuum tubes.
Despite the late hour, Talis couldn’t help but feel cheerful. They were only a few days away from leaving. A bank robbery sounded like more fun than vacuuming anyway.
Chapter 13
Despite being up late the night before and exhausted from the day’s work, Talis woke early. Not with the usual insomnia. This was something of the vigor she recalled from their former life. Her mind buzzed. She couldn’t sit still without disturbing the others, so she headed to the docks to make sure the deposits were all back in the vault before Nisa arrived for the morning. Then she could clear the deck with Eneil and maybe have time for a walk before she had to punch in for the day.
She could hear the barks and growling of tocks from the jungle; it was still prime hunting time for them. She kept to the edge of the island along the beach as she walked toward Im Ufite Rantor’s berth.
The noise of her feet on the gravel announced her presence in the quiet of that indecent hour. She was shown immediately to the great cabin where Eneil waited as though they’d been expecting her. Might have been, but probably not for the rejection she was about to deliver.
Their hair was braided in thin segments, which looped back behind their ears. The plaits were coiled and hung with dangling silver and crystal beads that sparkled with their movement in the cabin light. Every candle and fixture was lit, reflecting off polished sconces so that shadows were challenged to find purchase in the room. The twinkle of candlelight off Eneil’s hair reminded Talis far too much of the glittering frost that coated the flotsam below. They would only need to hold a builder’s model of her airship to complete the statement. And Eneil had seemed so subtle at first.
“That is disappointing, Captain.” Eneil’s tone was measured. “Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?”
She pretended to consider for a moment. “Tell us who your client is.”
A small part of her even dared to hope, if it was the pin in her decision, Eneil might relent. But they only dipped their chin a bit. It was a finality, not a concession.
“I see. Caution must topple eagerness, of course. Unfortunately, even I do not have the answer for you, and we do not have time to obtain it before the opportunity, quite literally, passes us by.”
“Then I�
�m afraid we’ve made our decision.” She held out the communication pad, offering it back.
Eneil placed their tea cup so carefully upon its saucer that there was no clink from the porcelain, but they did not reach for the tablet, or acknowledge it. “Captain Talis, your loyalty to those who serve you is an insurmountable force. Though I do wonder at the wisdom of your choice, if you will pardon my saying so. Whether salvaged by you or another, my client will have their prize. Your crew will suffer needlessly in what must be a difficult life for them.”
“They seem better suited to it than I am.”
“Still, I beg you to reconsider. There is yet time for you to think it over. We will be departing tomorrow on the dawn winds.”
“Nah, we’re good.” Talis’s smile wasn’t at all forced. She was proud. Her crew really did have a strength she did not, but theirs bolstered her. If Sophie and the others left the decision up to her, she knew she might capitulate. Might even still be pacing the tunnels trying to make the decision in the first place. Her arm was getting tired, so she placed the tablet back on her lap.
“Admirable. I am sure you will find a way to bring your crew home, without unnecessary danger. Isn’t your friend, Dukkhat Kheri, employed in the mines? Risky work, don’t you think?”
Talis prickled, feeling the undercurrent of a separate conversation happening. She hoped it was only her own anxiety playing with her, and not Eneil. “They tell me the Rakkar engineers designed those tunnels to be safer than any ship we might board. Anyway, I haven’t got any say over what risks they take. His choice.”
Eneil tightened their lips and rose from the settee, sliding narrow feet into silken slippers. Morning tea was over. “I understand, Talis. I am sorry we cannot work together. Thank you for your time.”
No more calling her ‘Captain’ and no more tea ceremony. She found herself escorted out. And fair enough. She’d dealt in business that didn’t work out before. If Eneil was anything like her, they’d be frustrated by the time and expensive tea wasted in trying to solicit her participation.
