Authors: Joseph R. Lallo
Tags: #scifi, #adventure, #action, #prison, #steampunk, #airships
I’ve just had to step away from this letter
for a bit. There was some ship business I had to attend to. Nothing
unusual, but the sort of thing that can’t wait until I’m done
writing.
In the past I’ve mentioned that I’d like for
you to meet some of the crew. I know that father is doing his best
to get them a special exception to the rules about outsiders
docking at Tellahn, but perhaps you can convince Drew to take you
down to Moor Spires next month so that you can say hello. Hopefully
by then Captain Mack won’t be quite so out of sorts. As you’ll no
doubt remember we…
Nita paused for a moment, considering the
correct word.
… acquired some goods from the people in the
fug, and the captain seems certain he can trade them for a high
enough price to finally secure a comfortable future for himself and
his crew. The problem is everyone knows we have them, and some
fellow airmen are making it difficult to lay the groundwork for the
captain’s plans. He hasn’t shared what those plans are yet, but the
crew certainly trusts him, and I’ve learned to do the same.
Some crumbs fell on the page as Wink finished
his stolen macaroon. He’d crept up to her shoulder, too nosy to
settle for anything but an unobstructed view of what she was doing.
The creature then reached down and tapped its long, thin middle
finger on one of the wrenches in Nita’s tool sash. The result was a
quick, clear, and complex pattern of taps. To anyone who had never
heard it before, and most people who had, it would have seemed like
the random, nervous tapping of a timid creature. Through a bit of
sleuthing and a lot of careful listening, Nita and the rest of the
Wind Breaker
crew had worked out that it was actually a
method of communication not unlike the one she’d used to tap out
messages through the pipes of her previous career in the
steamworks. Wink and the other ship inspectors were a good deal
more intelligent than anyone had realized, and their mandatory
inclusion on the fug folk–made ships was not a safety decision, it
was an act of espionage. Fortunately, they had convinced Wink to
stop sending reports on them, making the
Wind Breaker
possibly the only ship in the sky that had the benefit of privacy
and surprise when dealing with the fuggers.
Nita wrote a letter to her mother, Wink
tapped.
He had a peculiar way of phrasing things, as
the tap code was only ever meant to provide reports of the
activities on a ship, so he “spoke” in past tense, and even
questions were phrased as statements.
“Yes, Wink, I’m writing home, like I always
do at the beginning of the week.”
Nita told her mother to send more good
foods.
“Now why should I tell her that?” Nita asked.
“I never gave you permission to eat my macaroons, you know. I think
I liked you better when you spent your time staring at me like I
was a criminal.”
Nita told her mother to send more good foods,
Wink repeated.
Nita sighed and resumed writing.
The ship’s inspector would like me to inform
you that Marissa’s coconut macaroons are very tasty, and he would
appreciate if you send some just for him. Though to be honest, if I
don’t hurry up and eat some, this batch will end up being just for
him anyway.
In a few hours we’ll be tying the ship up at
a place called Lock. I don’t know if you remember me mentioning it
in the past, but Lock is the only major city that will let us
openly make port these days. The fug folk aren’t pleased with us
right now, because of the aforementioned acquisition of some of
their goods. Unfortunately, since they keep most of the rest of Rim
on a fairly short leash, that means that most other people aren’t
willing to deal with us for fear of making the fug folk angry.
Officially, no one in Rim actually knows how to maintain their own
airships or technology, since if the fug folk find out a crew has
been tinkering with their machines, they’ll ban the entire ship
from further trade and maintenance. The presence of the inspectors,
who report all relevant activities on the ships, means the fug folk
will always find out. So much of modern life in Rim revolves around
fug technology that losing it would be ruinous. That’s not a
problem in Lock, though. Lock is where most people who have already
been banned end up. Almost every airship in the sky absolutely
refuses to do business with the residents of Lock for fear of
earning the same fate. It is as though the whole city has the
plague. These people have nothing to lose, so they are more than
willing to have us visit.
It has been a while since we had any shore
leave, and while the captain has made some changes to our
responsibilities for the time being, I’m hoping I can get a few
hours on shore to see about those music boxes.
I think I’ve rambled long enough. There’s
plenty to do, and if I don’t stop myself, I’ll spend the whole day
scribbling away. I shall write to you again next week, and I look
forward to reading your letter.
Love always,
Nita
She stowed the pen in its sleeve and made
ready to close the book when she spied a corner peeking out from
between the last page and the back cover.
“Oh! I nearly forgot!” she said.
Quickly she pulled the book open again.
P.S. Honestly, if it wasn’t attached, I’d
forget my own head. I’ve spoken in the past about Drew purchasing
one of those cameras, the ones that produce images of whatever you
choose. Well, it turns out there was a broken one in the corner of
one of the Wind Breaker’s storerooms, and I was able to repair
it.
She tugged the stowed picture free and laid
it on the opposite page.
Enclosed is a photograph of the crew. It
takes a minute or so for the image to form, so I was able to set up
the camera and get in front of it without too much blurring. Let’s
see if you can work out which member of the crew is which based on
what I’ve told you!
Again she closed the book and carefully
stowed it before making her way to the hammock.
The crew had many quirks and skills that had
fascinated Nita upon her arrival. They had a casual distrust and an
unapologetically pragmatic view of just about anyone who didn’t
belong to the crew, for instance. It had been made clear to her
when she’d maneuvered her way onto the ship that if she ever became
a liability, she would be removed from it, whether or not it was at
port. That, at least, was behind her, but one of the quirks that
had initially seemed astounding was the crew’s universal ability to
drop off to sleep at a moment’s notice. Sleep was the grout that
filled the gaps of their day, squeezing into any place that could
hold it. After three weeks on the ship, Nita had discovered this
wasn’t a learned skill, it was a consequence of doing physically
demanding tasks around the clock for days at a time. For the last
two months or so she’d found she was just as capable of stealing a
few minutes of sleep whenever the opportunity arose as they were,
and life had become a good deal more pleasant as a result.
She hung up her tool sash and stowed any bits
that might fall out of her pockets as she slept, then kicked her
feet up into the loop that held one end of her hammock. The very
moment she reclined, she began the speedy slide toward slumber. Her
lips curled into a grin just before she drifted off as she heard
Wink pushing and shoving at the box keeping him from his
treats.
On the deck of the ship, Gunner and Coop were
standing at the port and starboard sides respectively. Gunner had
reluctantly agreed to exchange weapons so that he could take a look
at the sights on Coop’s rifle. That left the lanky deckhand
handling a weapon that looked like it had eaten two or three lesser
weapons. It had likely started life as a shotgun, with a stout,
imposing barrel to show for it. Since it was first built, however,
Gunner had “improved” it. He’d added not one but two additional
barrels, both nearly twice the size of the original one. It now had
four triggers as well, and an arrangement of lenses that looked
more like something a jeweler would use to study gems than a
marksman would use to take aim. In all likelihood the lenses were
indeed jeweler’s tools. It wouldn’t have been the first time Gunner
had found a way to make something lethal out of something
innocuous.
“How come you got four triggers on this
gadget but only three places to put shells?” Coop called to
him.
“All you need to know is that you should
never pull the fourth one first,” Gunner replied.
“Which one’s the fourth one? Is that the one
in front or the one in back?”
“The one in back. And please don’t fire
anything unless you actually see a raider or pirate. I hand pack
those shells, and I’d rather not waste one.”
“You hand pack these shells?” Coop said.
“Yes.”
The deckhand slowly moved his fingers a bit
farther away from the triggers. “Judging by your hands, I’d rather
trade back before I do any shooting.”
“The shells
and
the gun are perfectly
sound,” Gunner said.
“So you say, but I’m a trifle slow to trust a
claim like that from a man who needs to take off a shoe to count to
ten.”
“I may only have seven and a half fingers
left, Coop, but unlike you I don’t need them to do my counting,”
Gunner grumbled.
He let Coop’s smaller, less elaborate rifle
hang by its strap and reached down into a crate at his feet. Inside
were a flexible hook and a pile of clay pigeons. He loaded a pigeon
and let it fly with a practiced flick of his arm. As it sailed up
and then began to plummet, he stowed the thrower and took aim. A
pull of the trigger released a crisp clap of gunfire and shattered
the pigeon.
“Your sights are fine, Coop. Just as I said
they were,” Gunner said. “Now get over here and give me back my
gun.”
The deckhand walked over and presented the
contraption to its inventor, gratefully taking back his own
weapon.
“So what’ve you been up to these days,
Gunner?” Coop asked, reaching into the crate to load a pigeon of
his own to test Gunner’s claim.
“I’ve been doing what any reasonably
intelligent person would be doing in the face of an influx of
fugger goods. I’m learning how their things work. I think I’ve got
that rocket-propelled grenade worked out,” he said.
“You been monkeying with that thing?” Coop
said. “Cap’n! How’s about you letting me move my quarters a bit
farther away from Gunner’s?”
“No one is moving their quarters,” the
captain rumbled.
“What do you mean you’ve almost got it worked
out, anyway? I thought we made sure we got them instructions that
was in the box with it.”
“Any fool could determine how to
operate
a weapon. I want to know how it functions. I can’t
very well improve upon it if I don’t know how it functions. That
device is fairly simple, though. There’s one gadget we turned up
that I’m still having trouble puzzling out. At first I thought it
was some sort of lantern, a portable phlo-light. It definitely
takes canisters of phlogiston in lieu of ammunition, and there’s
another compartment that stinks like fug. But in our haste to pack
the thing and escape, we seem to have lost a few pieces, as well as
the manual. Nita says she thinks the pieces were just valves, and
the fuggers design their components in a fairly standardized way,
so it’s taken some testing to find the right ones. It still doesn’t
do much, though. More trial and error is called for.”
“That just may be, but I don’t want to be
around when one of those errors makes it so you need to take off
both
shoes to count to ten. Give it to me straight, now.
When’s the last time you had two whole eyebrows?”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Gunner
said.
“Nothing ventured, nothing blown off,
neither.”
Coop launched the pigeon and fired, easily
picking it off. “Guess you were right.” He dug into the pocket of
his coat and began to reload the weapon. “So, if I can get off the
ship at all once we’re down at Lock, I figure I might spend some
money. This is the first time in too long I’ve had two coins to rub
together and then some, and it figures I ain’t had no chance to
spend it.”
“The fact you haven’t been able to spend it
is precisely why you still have some.”
Coop ignored the observation. “If I was to
look for something nice for Nita, what do you reckon she’d
like?”
Gunner looked warily to Coop. “Don’t tell me
you’ve got designs on the Calderan.”
“Why not? She’s pretty, and she’s been as
good as any of us on the ship. I reckon she’s here to stay.”
“Do you honestly think she would be
interested in
you
? Calderans are refined.”
“I’m as refined as the next fella.”
“Need I remind you I’m the only one on the
ship with a formal education?”
“Nope, you don’t need to remind me of that,
because you say it just about every chance you get. Why?
You
got designs on Nita?”
“If anyone on this ship has a chance with
her, it is me,” Gunner said.
“But have you got
designs
on her?”
“There is something special in that one, no
doubt. Perhaps someday. I certainly wouldn’t shun any advances on
her part.”
“See, that ain’t right. Nita’s the only woman
of courting age on the ship that ain’t my sister. Seems to me the
gentlemanly thing to do would be to wait until she turns me down
before you start making plans.”
“I’m not making any definite plans. And as I
recall, you informed me that if I ever so much as looked at your
sister the wrong way, you’d break my nose.”
“And I meant it, too.”
“Then she isn’t exactly an option for me, is
she? And I don’t think there are any established rules regarding
courtship on—”
“You boys wouldn’t be standing both on the
same side of the ship jawing about women when you should be keeping
watch, would you?” called out the captain from his place at the
wheel.