Launch Pad (16 page)

Tired, too damned tired.

“I don’t think—” Valdoux began, but the whippet raised a hand to silence the captain. “Do you know who I am, Revered?”

“No,” Quinx said shortly. “Nor do I particularly care.”

“Perhaps you should care,” the whippet said in a quiet, almost wondering voice. “For I do know who you are. I am all too sadly familiar with the mission of the Consistitory Office. Once I was a novice, Revered, before being turned out upon the path of what you call the Machinists’ Heresy.”

“Then I sorrow for you, my son, that you have strayed so from the Increate. But still, I must aboard with Captain Valdoux.”

“You will not go without me,” the whippet warned. “A man in your hurry is always in want of weapons. I am master gunner of Blind Justess.”

Quinx, who had apologized to no one but Ion in at least five decades, held back his next words. What this Machinist deserved and what the priest was in a position to mete out to the man were far different things. He had his priorities. After a moment, he found suitable alternatives. “That is between you and the captain, master gunner. My hurry is my own, and all too real.”

“Speak, then,” Valdoux said, finally in voice again. “There ain’t nothing you can say that I won’t tell to Three Eighty Seven here. He’s got to know what it is I hire us out to do.”

“You are already hired,” Quinx pointed out.

“Not to push off into the sky armed and rushing.” Valdoux’s eyes narrowed. “East, I reckon. I’ve heard talk of who took ship today and where their course was laid to.”

Enough, thought Quinx. There was small purpose in fencing with these two. And he was exhausted besides. If they crossed him over much, he could have them taken on an ecclesiastical warrant later. The Thalassojustity would simply laugh at such paper, but the government of Highpassage recognized Church writ.

“Yes, east. I must to Thera, and quite promptly. And we should fly under arms.”

“Afraid of pirates?” The thrice-damned Machinist was positively smirking.

“Afraid we might need to become pirates,” Quinx admitted.

“Sailing into the red under the banner of Holy Mother Church?” Three Eighty Seven touched himself forehead, mouth, and navel; the sign of the Increate. “We should ever be so honored.” He turned to Valdoux. “Are you planning to take this commission? Ninety Nine will be here shortly, but I must go see to the armaments, unless you think the churchman here cannot afford your hire.”

Valdoux laughed aloud. “The Revered here could buy me out ship, sail, and shoes, if he set his sights on that. The question is whether I figure to take his coin.” He winked at Quinx. “Best go to your station, master gunner. One way or another, we’ll be playing at the hardest game soon enough, I reckon.”

The whippet grinned and trotted up the stairway that wound foursquare around the interior of the mooring mast.

“There are no pirates, are there?” Quinx said. “Just airships and more airships.”

“The lines on the map ain’t visible from up in the sky.” Valdoux cocked his head. “But someone of your experience can’t possibly be surprised at what is true being hidden in plain sight.”

“No one raids the Gatekeeper’s air fleet, so the Gatekeeper’s minions do not attend so closely to such matters as others doubtless must,” the priest admitted. “Besides which, we have been disarmed these many years, and would be required to apply to the Thalassojustity for relief.”

“Their borders are perfectly clear from above. More’s the pity. Ain’t too many would make such a fight as a Thalassojustity crew trained and ready for action.” Valdoux squatted. “You look like the death of a priest. Even the Grand Inquisitor must sleep sometimes.”

“This is the hour I would pass over into sleep, yes,” admitted Quinx. As if it were not too obvious from his face, surely. “But I need you to take me to Thera, swiftly. And I need to be certain you will attend to my orders, should that become necessary.”

“You won’t have no say over my weapons. No one does. But I’ll take you to Thera. We’ll fly armed and ready.” Valdoux paused, chewing his lip. Something warred with in. Then: “I will also listen to your counsel, should we come to be fighting.”

“And…? There is always an ‘and’ at the end of such sentences.”

“More of a ‘but’, I reckon.” This time Valdoux smirked, while Quinx pretended to misunderstand the jest. “But I got to know why you want to chase after the Thalassojustity’s biggest brass. All hot up and ready to fight, at that. This ain’t something a thoughtful priest would be doing. Or even a thoughtless priest.”

“I fear a great heresy is about to be unleashed. Tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow. And it may sweep the world. If I can reach one man aboard Clear Mountain and stop him, I may be able to halt a rising tide before the damage is done.”

“Ain’t no one stops the tide,” Valdoux observed. “That’s why I fly over the waters. Let the Thalassocretes argue with the waves. Storms don’t trouble the top of the sky.” He stuck his hand out. “I’ll take you for a single silver shekel. That seals a contract. Learning what comes next will pay your balance. You’re a mighty strange man, Revered, on a mighty strange errand.”

“A shekel it is.” Despite the process. Quinx was afraid he’d somehow got the wrong end of the bargain nonetheless.

“Look at it from my bridge.” Valdoux grinned again. “Either I’ll get to see the beginning of a tide that floods the world, or I’ll get to see a lone man stop the tide. History before my eyes either way, no matter how the play lands. Or maybe you’re a madman. Even so, I reckon you’re mad with the entire power of the Lateran behind you. Watching that should be good sport, likewise.”

Ninety Nine loomed out of the darkness at those words. Quinx was startled again—from the name he’d expected another Machinist, but not a female. She was clad immodestly in a tunic and sailor’s dungarees.

Valdoux bowed her wordlessly up the tower. She favored Quinx with one cold, incurious glance, then clattered upward.

He stared after her a long moment, trying to sort his feelings from his fatigue, then surrendered the effort and began the slow, aching climb himself.

As Quinx mounted the stairs, Valdoux called after him. “We sail under Manju rules now, Revered. Be sure you really want what you’re asking after.”

O O O

Quinx slept the remainder of the night away while Blind Justess set her course and left Highpassage ahead of the impending storm. He awoke to a pearlescent pink dawn gleaming through the tiny porthole of his tiny cabin. Most of the available space not occupied by his bunk was filled with Brother Kurts, who snored gently while sprawled upon the deck.

He could not remember ever having seen the monk asleep.

There was no getting up without disturbing the other man, so Quinx lay still a while and watched the sky shift tone from pink to blue. They would be heading very nearly into the sun, he realized, and surely not so far from Thera now unless the winds had been notably unfavorable.

Tiny though the cabin was, it had been appointed with the same odd combination of frugality and luxury as the rest of the airship. The paneling was some wood he did not recognize, doubtless a rare tree from the waist of the world. Brightwork and electricks ran across the walls like veins. Even the sheets were silk, which seemed a bit perverse.

Soon he realized he must be awake and about. Valdoux was mercurial, likely to take any number of strange actions in the absence of his direction. “Brother Kurts,” Quinx whispered.

The monk’s head snapped forward with a gust of garlicky breath. “Revered,” he said, his hand falling away again from something beneath his robes.

A weapon, of course, though such was forbidden by the Galiciate Treaty. Kurts worked for Quinx, not the Thalassojustity. The Consistitory Office had its own requirements, for all that he must at times pretend to a long lost innocence as to means and methods.

“Everything is well, Brother Kurts. I must have some coffee, and mount to the bridge to consult with our fair captain.”

“Six others aboard, sir,” Kurts replied. “Two of them Machinists. The captain, his ship’s boy from before. An engineer and his boy as well. The heretics serve as gunners and artificers, best as I can tell.”

“I met one of them last night. He styled himself Three Eighty Seven.”

“The master gunner.” The monk nodded slowly. “Gunner’s mate is a female name of Ninety Nine.”

“I briefly saw her yesterday evening.” Somehow Ninety Nine’s dubious femininity seemed doubly blasphemous by the light of day, though in truth, Quinx was rapidly losing his capacity for surprise at what might transpire aboard Blind Justess.

“I doubt she will challenge anyone’s virtue. She is both offensive and unlovely.”

“And what do you know of a woman’s loveliness, Brother Kurts?” Quinx asked with a small smile.

The monk was not amused. “As little and all as the Increate allows a man of my vows.”

“Fair enough. I apologize for troubling you. But I must find my way to coffee before I become more trouble.”

They slipped into the short companionway on this upper deck. Brother Kurts led Quinx the half dozen steps to the tiny galley. This was indeed a racing yacht, not intended for full meal service. Or really, any other full service. The coffee machine, however, was an elegant marvel of brass and copper, festooned with a maze of pipes and valves and small, decorative metal eagles screaming for their freedom.

It smelled like a slice of heaven.

“Truly the Increate did bless mankind when They caused the coffee bean to grow,” said Quinx.

Kurts grunted, studying the machine for several long moments before launching into a rapid set of seemingly random manipulations that shortly produced a steaming cup of coffee so deep brown Quinx thought he might be able to see the reflection of last year’s breakfasts in it.

Five minutes later, fortified by caffeine and a rather stale sticky bun of dubious provenance, Quinx headed for the bridge on the deck below. He was trailed by a bleary-eyed Brother Kurts.

O O O

“Good morning to you, Revered.” Valdoux seemed as chipper as if he’d just had a week at a Riveran resort. The ship’s boy was present, as well as another lad whom Quinx took to be the engineer’s boy. To his profound relief, neither Machinist was on the bridge.

“Captain, the pleasure is all mine.” Quinx slipped up to the fore, where Valdoux piloted Blind Justess with a wheel and a set of levers. Gauges were arrayed to either side of him, but before and sweeping down to his feet was a wall of curved glass. The pale green of the Attik Main loomed vertiginously below, the ripples of waves like crumpled foil.

An oblong island with a sharp-peaked central mountain lay before them. A small settlement nestled on one shore—the south?—dominated by its docks. The rest of the island was heavily forested. Clearly not settled, beyond whomever lived there to service the sea traffic.

“Thalassojustity territory,” Quinx observed.

Valdoux made a tsking noise. “Ain’t no airship masts. They’re behind the times, our naval friends.”

Quinx glanced sideways. “You hold no brief for the Pax Maria?”

“What do I care for the sea? The air is my place. They can’t make neither peace nor war in the skies. And they ain’t made no real effort to claim what power might be theirs up here.”

“Where one grasp fails, another will reach,” muttered Brother Kurts behind them.

“Exactly,” said Valdoux. “And here is Thera, Revered. We overflew a fast ship on the water late in the night. I reckon they’ll be here by midmorning.”

“Clear Mountain?”

“I didn’t figure on stopping to ask. But that does seem to be a sensible thing to assume.”

How to proceed? Quinx badly wanted to confront this fool Morgan Abutti before more damage could be done, but the man had spent almost an entire day closeted with the senior Thalassocretes. A more focused assemblage of the powers in the world he had trouble imagining, short of another Congress of Cities and States being called.

How much harm had already been levied? Was the Externalist heresy loose for good and all? Or had the Thalassojustity seen through the madman and contained him?

Valdoux’s voice interrupted Quinx’ whirling thoughts. “No.”

“No? No what?”

“I can’t land you in force aboard Clear Mountain.”

“That was not my …” Quinx let his voice trail off. He didn’t know what he should do next. He thought quickly. “I would meet them at the dock. Brother Kurts will guard my back.”

“With Blind Justess circling overhead? Or standing off?”

That took a long moment of consideration. Aerial force was not a strength of the Thalassojustity, especially not in this place. “Overhead. Awaiting my signal.”

Valdoux reached down to the bottom of his wheel column and unclipped a fat-barreled pistol. “Fire this. I’ll come down hot and fast, guns at the ready.”

Quinx looked in wonder at the weapon in his hand. He’d never held a firearm before, any more than he’d ever held a viper.

Brother Kurts reached around and took it from him. “A flare gun,” he explained. “But you can still harm yourself with it.”

“Or someone else,” Valdoux offered cheerfully. “A shot to the chest from that won’t likely kill nobody, but the other fellow might wish it had.”

“Give me back that flare, Brother Kurts,” Quinx said, suddenly tired all over again. “Only I can decide when to use it.”

The monk looked unhappy, but he returned the weapon.

It fit awkwardly within Quinx’ robes. “Take me down,” he told Valdoux.

“I can’t land here. You got to go down by rope. I’ll send Ninety Nine along to look after your safety.”

Quinx’ fatigue shifted to a sense of nausea, or perhaps outright illness. He would be confronting heresy under the protection of a female Machinist. Any priest who came before the Consistitory Office with such a story would spend long months under the Question, or at the very least in quiet confinement to pray over his errors of judgment and resultant sins.

The expression on Valdoux’s face made it clear the captain was testing Quinx. And Quinx knew that here and now, he held no leverage.

“Let us do this thing,” he gasped, forcing out the words before the last tatters of his certainty vanished.