Cogs in Time Anthology (The Steamworks Series) (19 page)

Rihanna scrunched her brow. “You don’t know who the other prisoners were—the fresh prey?”
              “Other than Navarro, I don’t even know who survived from my crew.” Domaroc lay back down.

“I’m sorry, Dom. I know your crew and Navarro meant a lot to you. I don’t think you could have done anything for them though. Navarro was the idiot for letting everyone sleep outside.”

Domaroc chuckled. “He didn’t believe in the Cat Clans.”

“Cocky bastard.” Rihanna rolled her eyes. “He knew about the clans. You don’t have anything to worry about, Domaroc. You aren’t going to be reprimanded.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because, I’m your Judge.” She smiled down at him.

Domaroc sat up. “What?”

“I was sent along more as a judicial representative than as a diplomat. You see, Navarro had been trading with the cats for a long time. Part of the shipment of ore that you were supposed to deliver was payment to the Lady Supreme of the Ranar. Thing is—”

He groaned. “Our flight was timed. Are you telling me the converter was sabotaged?”

“Correct. Evidently, the Lady Supreme didn’t like the payment, so she took the crew.”

“And Navarro wasn’t thrilled, so he conspired with Quanda and the other prey to rebel.” Domaroc ran his right hand through his hair.

She nodded. “Yes, the Ranar were more loyal to their Lady Supreme than expected.”

“How do you know this?” Domaroc asked.

“Onic and Duva. They contacted me when they heard about it. Duva didn’t like her girl-child dealing with humans, so Onic convinced her contacting us would halt it.” Rihanna stretched. “The only things I don’t know is what Navarro was trading for and why the cats attacked us. Any ideas?”
              Domaroc shook his head. “Not a clue. I can’t believe Navarro could keep something like this a secret.”

“How do you think I feel? You were his second, but I was his lover.”

He furrowed his brow. “But they sent you to judge him?”

“Not everyone knew.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t think it would have mattered. If he did bed one of the cats, I doubt I could have looked at him the same.” She exhaled loudly and hung her head.

Domaroc placed a hand on her knee. “I am sorry, Rihanna.”

“Don’t be. Not your fault. I do believe you had no knowledge of Navarro’s plans, so that will keep you out of prison or any sort of punishment. Only thing I am ordering of you is to stay grounded for a while. Spend some time with Carialis. She misses you, and the baby’s almost due.”

“That’s a mere slap on the wrist. Aren’t you supposed to be one of the harshest judges?” Domaroc teased.

“I’d say you’ve been through enough torment for a while. Just rest up. You have a wife eagerly waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Rihanna.” Domaroc smiled at her, taking her hand in his.

She returned the smile, and taking up the tray, she left, dimming the lights as she went.

Domaroc laughed. “Still more sleep, but something worth waking up to.”

Domaroc closed his eyes once again, but for the first time, he dreamed of Carialis. He knew that the troubles in the jungle no longer concerned him. He would mourn the loss of his commander and crew and would ponder the fate of the second-in-command of the Ranar Cat Clan, but not now. For the moment, he would slip into a happier dream, one of a raven haired, blue-eyed beauty that would be by his side when he awoke.

By Deborah Dalton

The steam whistle screeched, but I was already working as fast as I could to pull on the stuck valve with my oven mitts. It snapped open. The boiling wort flowed through the hose attached to the bottom of the pot, down through the copper coil around the liquid nitrogen, and into the next pot.

The temperature gauges told the story, 120 Celsius to 10 in just a few seconds.

I stepped back and wiped the golden hair away from my eyes. The leather strap that I used to pull it away from my face had finally worn all the way through that morning. The woman who had pretended to be my mother had always said that a girl’s pride was her hair, but I am more tempted than ever to hack it all off, especially this summer. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone out here.

Through the open door, I watched the cogwheels whirling in the breeze where I had propped the old ones out like pinwheels. The steam hissed through the pipes coming out from my generator, forge and cooking unit. It did everything, including powering some crackling electric lights at night.

I stepped through the door into the instantly cooler air and breathed out. Then I scanned the skies for a distant airship or maybe some interesting clouds. No else dwells out here. I smiled as the scent of the wort sauntered outside to meet the sweet, mountain air.

That’s me, Sandy Marlin, frontier brewer.

Alcohol is my trade, and not just the swill that can power engines as well as clean out your guts. Well, okay some of that—when I need to scrub my machines—but I’m talking about the good stuff. Like my chocolate oatmeal stout, or my other various wines and beers. All of them made out here, by me, in the lonesome.

The sudden mechanical blare of a horn shook me down in my bones. I clenched my fist and growled as I turned. Only one horn like that ventured this way.

The blimp’s shadow eclipsed the sun like a very personal moon. Figures threw sandbags over the side, and the gangplank lowered before the craft even landed.

The wind rustled the dried grasses around me while I watched the arriving vessel. A shadowy figure approached the railing and turned into the sunlight. Mr. Charles Francis Rupert himself, the man of three first names. He still came himself, and I had to credit him for it.

He ambled down the plank just as it kissed the ground, coattails swirling out behind him, reminiscent of a cloak. He doffed his top hat and even winked at me. Then he pulled back his waistcoat, just enough so that I would see the laser pistol adorning his hip.

He showed it off every time. For all I knew, that thing didn’t even have a battery, but it was shiny, and he was a shiny fellow.

I realized how tense I was, waiting for it. I tried to push the knot of tangles from my face with all the grace I could summon. My jaw was closing together with every heartbeat.

He smoothed his mustache. “What could drive a woman to live out here alone?”

Every time. Every single time.

So I replied the same as always, “What would drive someone out here to seek her?”

We both exhaled with the ceremony done.

He raised his hand and jostled his coat, revealing the pistol again—purely by accident, I’m sure. Then he snapped his fingers like a small thunderclap.

Servants, at least he always assured me that he paid for their services, hustled down the plank with trunks of supplies. Their ill-fitted and threadbare clothes clashed against the polished wood and elaborate brass of the crates they carried.

Charles folded a velvet bag of gold into my fingers and winked again.

I dropped it into the leather pouch on my waist without checking.

“I’m such a fool.” He offered an exhausted smile. “Bullets. You had asked for bullets.”

I sighed. “Well, if that’s the worst of it…” I shrugged.

“You need to move to the city, my dear. You wouldn’t need bullets there.”

I raised a doubtful eyebrow and shook my head. “Water’s better here. Unless you want me to create sludge wine like the liquid manure your other brewers make. I tasted that gasoline.”

I watched the muscles on his face tighten. “The cities are different from when you were younger, Sandy. And for that ugly part of humanity that has remained, I have hired protection for it.”

I waved my hand and started to turn away. “Every time, Charles.” Over his shoulder, I watched his servants tiptoe up the gangplank with my charming wines.

“Five hundred times over.”

I stopped.

“I sell what you make for over five hundred times what it costs me to supply you. You’re the glimmer on the jewel, Sandy. It could be well over six hundred if you moved to the city, and I didn’t have to fly out here. You could make more of your sweet ambrosia poison, and with better equipment. You would have help.”

“I have everything I need.” I bent to open one of the trunks’ lids, but I had inhaled the scents of citrus and strawberries long before I ever lifted it. Sweat gathered on the outside of the trunk, between its interior and the hollow divider full of ice.

“Only because of me. I know that the gold just piles up. You have nowhere to spend it out here.”

I shrugged again. “I’ll need it in case you ever disappear on me. Besides, I’ve got the chickens, and I could always sell the eggs.”

“To whom?” He threw open his hand to the wild hills. “The tribes?”

I tried to ignore my involuntary shiver. I left them a few bottles on the night of the new moon when they were in the area, and they had always left me alone. However, it was just a medicinal promise—they could charge in if they ever wanted.

“Tribes have got trading contacts. I could be back in business in a few months. Or maybe I’ll just sell straight to the outlaws.” I froze right in my verbal knife twist thinking about the bank robbers, the mine thieves, and the butchers. I forced a tight smile. “Of course, they don’t come this far across tribal land. They go south.”

Charles grabbed my arm. “Not since the Illani closed their borders and started shooting anyone without a passport.”

I looked him right in those spicy green eyes.

He squeezed. “I mean it this time.”

I pulled up on his thumb and unwrapped his fingers. “You mean it every time.”

“No one would ever find your corpse out here.”

“You probably would, if I died at home.”

“That’s a big if. I have dozens of staff now, even more servants, and two mansions, two. I would let you live in one.”

“Then who would look after my chickens?”

“Sandy.”

“I am not going back.”

He huffed and straightened his suit jacket. “It’s different now.”

I shook my head. I wanted to say that I could always find another supplier, but stopped short of it. According to the magazines he was so proud of, Charles was the king of beer, but I could sell the power behind the throne.

Mr. Rupert stuck up his chin and snapped his fingers again. His servants jerked to attention and scuttled up the gangplank after him.

From the deck of his ship, he winked down at me again. Propellers whirred and the fins lowered on its sides as the entire contraption started to sail away from my little valley.

I sighed, watching the aircraft rise like a child’s toy, dwindling smaller by the second. Maybe there were palaces again somewhere. Maybe there was a woman calling herself a duchess just because she’d been a bigger bastard than the rest, but not out here.

Digging holes into the soft soil with my feet, I dragged the trunks with the perishables into the cellar. I had rigged up my own refrigeration powered by my center generator via a chain and steam-pipes between the house and the underground structure.

Everything else I left where it had dropped. It wasn’t cleanup day until the next morning, and I needed more of my liquid platinum ingredient.

I walked over and kicked the frame of my beetle rover. A few more bits of rust and dust drifted up in a small cloud, but the beastie still worked. Six mechanical legs shuddered as I pushed the ignition lever into place. The therm in the engine came alive, and seconds later, the water started to sizzle inside its belly. Some electrical pops sounded toward the rear and the machine stood up.

I rolled the throttle forward and the beastie jumped into motion, running tirelessly up the slopes toward the distant peaks. Its heavy metal hooves struck deep grooves into the mud before the ground faded into stones. We were going into the wind, but I was smiling.

The beetle was never a smooth ride, but it was the best machine for the mountains. It didn’t have wheels to get stuck in creeks and crevices. It had lizard pads to navigate rocks and slopes.

The therm kept me warm the higher we rose. The explosive-tipped arrows rattled in their sheath next to the aged rifle. With the rover on a straight path, I leaned back to string the bow. I hadn’t encountered a bear or a cougar in a long time, but that didn’t mean they’d moved away. I always assumed that the beetle’s engine scared them off before I ever saw them.

Bullets were too rare to risk on animals, especially since Charles had forgotten to resupply me. Gun oil was scarce too, and you had to clean those things every time you used them. Then again, you have to use the oil for carboys, hoses and brew pots too, but damn it, those things were important.

So is the water. After a few hours, I stopped the rover by the deceptively fast stream in the higher valley. Glaciers sparkled on against the gray rocks up in the distance, and a cool wind stung my unprotected skin.

The stream, sparkling like clear diamonds in the light, was colder still. Its water had not yet been kissed by the warmth of the sun, nor picked up any muck as it did when it hit the plains. Clean, fresh and crisp. Nothing but the best for my brews.

The scent of lilac carried on the air, and I thought that would be a nice final touch to add to a mellow wine.

I gathered my hoses and set the pumps to work. The beetle carried two barrels—glass coated on the inside to keep out any metallic flavors. When I wanted a woody flavor, I would add some chips or use a wooden barrel for fermentation.
Cedar would be nice to try again soon
, I mused,
instead of the standard oaken casks. Maybe pine.

I’d never thought about intentionally flavoring with metal. A copper tasting beer would have tasted a little like blood, but people were into anything lately.

I rested back in the grass while the pumps plucked the ingredient from the inevitable tumble of gravity. Surprisingly, the grass was still thick and soft, and I soon drifted off.

When I awoke, the floats in the barrels had risen, causing the pumps to shut off automatically.

I yawned, stretched, and didn’t want to move. However, I had to, or else I would not make it down to my little valley in time to brew. I slithered into my station on the beetle’s back and wound the hoses back onto their wheels as I yawned again. The machine’s rocking was sleepily seductive, especially as night stretched out her blankets over the land. Sunset always arrived faster around the peaks.

I slowed the beetle, but by then, we were far enough away from the smooth rocks and sharp drops that I needn’t have worried.

I hauled on the machine brakes. I sniffed.
Wildfire?
Something was burning, and fires were always a danger out here, hovering just in the back of my imagination. I inhaled again, just to make certain. This was too close to home. I rammed the throttle forward and the beetle skittered ahead. The water sloshed angrily in its barrels, but remained captive.

The smell of roasting meat crawled up my nostrils the closer I got to home.
What…?
A singed brown chicken feather floated up past my cheek. I stopped the rover, jumped off, and then I ran back to it and snatched up the rifle. I dodged around the pines and stumbled blindly into my little garden. The blood-streaked head of a chicken stared up at me, its body several feet away.

All of my chickens were strewn amongst my smashed crops. My knees shook too much to carry me forward, and I dropped down into the tilled soil. When I looked up, the lights of the fires had come into focus. My home. Shouts echoed around the forest, and even some distant laughter. I gulped.