Skykeep (7 page)

Nita looked over the mound, taking a mental
inventory.

“You may have all of the parts, but this
isn’t really repairing an old pump, this is assembling a new pump,”
Nita said.

Their host removed his helmet and flipped
open the lens, then turned a valve on a pipe running along the wall
and lit a gas lantern with it.

“Are you able to do so? The mayor has
authorized us to pay you whatever you feel is a fair price.”

Nita eyed up the equipment. “I suppose with
Lil’s help we
may
be able to get it done in a day. But for a
boiler and pump this size, it really isn’t a two-person job. We’ll
need some people in here to move some of the larger stuff in
place.”

“It would be a tremendous help to the town,”
Matthews said. “If you can get started on the finer tasks, once the
current shift in the mines is complete we’ll get a crew in here to
help with the heavy lifting.”

“I say we give it a try, Nita,” Lil said.
“Worst we can do is leave them with half a pump or whatever instead
of no pump.”

“There’s no question we’ll try, but we’re
only in port for a short time, so if we’re not through by then, it
will have to wait for the next time.”

“Anything you do will be enormously
appreciated,” Matthews said. “I’ll leave you to your work. I or one
of my associates will be at the entrance of the mine. If you need
anything at all, just shout.” He took a step toward the door, then
stopped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was supposed to ask you if there was
anything you’d like to eat.”

“We actually ate not long ago, so—” Nita
began.

“So it can wait a bit, but give us a couple
of them big, thick sammiches you make here. With the roasted meat.
Fresh stuff, not corned or like that. And put some cheese on there,
too. Thick, crusty bread, toasted. And a big glass of milk for each
of us,” Lil proclaimed. She turned to Nita. “Always get yourself a
glass of milk when you’re on shore leave, because you won’t be
getting it on the ship, that’s for sure.”

“Do they even have cows here?” Nita
asked.

“Nope, but they got goats. Goats do good in
the mountains. I grew up on goat’s milk. Good stuff.”

“Anything else?” Matthews asked.

“If there’s anything you think goes good with
that, pile that on there, too. Thanks a bunch, Matthews!” Lil
said.

Their host nodded and took his leave,
shutting the door behind him and retreating with an echo of
footsteps. Nita removed her helmet and shut off the flame, Lil
following suit. She clipped it to one of the many hooks and clasps
on her belt.

“You should know better than to turn down a
free meal on the mainland, Nita,” Lil said. “Good as Butch is, it
never hurts to get some fresh stuff in you when you have the
chance.” She rubbed her hands together. “Now let’s get started. How
do we do this again?”

“Just break the big job into smaller jobs. In
this case, the first job would be identifying all of the pieces to
see if we have enough to do the repair.”

“Right, right. Lemme see if I remember this
stuff from last time. This here’s the firebox, right? And that’s
the kettle bit. I don’t think I ever seen this flappy part
before.”

Lil held up what looked like the wheel of a
miniature paddleboat.

“You wouldn’t have seen one of those before.
That’s an impeller. That’s for the pump, not the boiler. Let’s get
this all sorted out to make sure we have what we need…”

The two women got to work, moving things into
piles, chatting happily between pauses to identify and
organize.

#

Captain West followed Mayor Wilshire up a
flight of stairs toward the administrative wing of the hospital,
where the mayor kept an office for meetings such as this. The
captain found himself pausing every few steps to catch his footing,
not because the ground was moving but because it wasn’t. At this
point in his life, he had spent more time off the ground than on
it, and walking across a floor that didn’t lurch along with its own
rhythm always took a few minutes to become accustomed to.

They reached the appropriate door and pushed
it open to find a small but neatly kept office. There was a desk
with two chairs and an oil lamp. Most of the walls were hidden
behind bookshelves that were used as much for knickknacks as books,
but in the bare wall between them a few official documents were on
display. The mayor took off his coat and hung it on a varnished
wooden rack, offering to take the captain’s as well. Mack waved him
off. Both men took a seat in cushioned leather chairs.

“It is always an honor to host you and your
crew in our fair town, Captain. I—”

“Mayor, I appreciate the song and dance, but
I ain’t really one for wasting too many words on patting each other
on the back, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon get
the brass tacks hammered out and be on my way,” Captain Mack
said.

“Of course. A born businessman. Time is money
after all,” the mayor said. He cleared his throat. “Now I must say,
I was surprised when you approached me a few months ago. It isn’t
every day that someone expresses interest in buying an
island
.”

“No, I don’t reckon it is.”

“You’ll understand if I had my doubts
regarding your wherewithal to do so. But… well, if what you’ve
shown me is representative of the goods you’ve got to offer.
Medicines, weapons… so many things the fug folk have never even
entertained
making available to us… I think it is a foregone
conclusion that you’ll have what you need to make the purchase in
no time.”

“You say that, but I haven’t heard a price
yet, Mayor.”

“Captain, there is the matter of the island
itself.” The mayor stood and opened a cabinet to find a bundle of
long, rolled-up pieces of parchment. “I had to dig into the
archives to find the relevant documentation. Ever since we had to
shift from airships to traditional ones, we’ve begun to…
deemphasize
our more distant holdings. Particularly those of
the size you’ve indicated.”

Lock had become the catchall for those
cast-off from airship-centric society largely because of its active
harbor. Even before the steady flow of former airmen seeking to
make a living on the sea, it had kept a small but well-maintained
fleet of warships and merchant vessels. As effective as an airship
might be, with the exception of the now defunct dreadnought nothing
in the sky could ever hope to rival the power and size of a fully
equipped battleship. Thus Lock had managed to stake a claim to and
defend a scattering of islands stretching out into the sea.
Initially those holdings were a part of Westrim, Lock’s home
nation, but as more and more of the people who had angered the fug
folk accumulated there, Westrim distanced itself more and more from
Lock. These days it functioned effectively as a city-state.

“Any of the islands large enough to support a
worthwhile agricultural concern are doing so. The others simply
can’t produce enough of any product valuable enough to warrant the
time and resources of sending a ship out to them. I wasn’t entirely
certain the island you’d indicated was even under our flag any
longer.”

“I can assure you, it’s still under your
flag, since I brought the
Wind Breaker
down there for a
spell and your flag was just about the only thing on it.”

The mayor cleared some room on the center of
his desk and unfurled a nautical map. “Forgive me, I’ve never been
one for maps. Could you indicate the island to which you are
referring?”

Mack leaned forward and tapped his finger on
a spot of black ink that was small and haphazard enough to be
mistaken for a stray speck of fly dirt if not for the small,
carefully lettered label identifying it.

“Laylow Island,” the mayor read. He walked to
one of the bookcases and selected a thick volume. “Let me see…
moderate crop potential. Good elevation. Natural harbor sufficient
for two or three large boats or half a dozen small ones. No natural
resources to speak of beyond a few fruit trees. Well. It is easy to
see why we haven’t been keeping an eye on the place. It is too far
from the mainland to be of any use to any trade routes here on Rim.
It is too far off course to be of any use to any potential trade
with Caldera, even
if
they decided to open their borders
again. It couldn’t support more than ten people by itself. That
wouldn’t even feed the crew of the boat it would take to reach
it.”

“That’s why I reckon it might be in my price
range,” the captain said.

“We can certainly discuss it, but before we
do, I’ve got to ask… not that I’m not grateful, but if you are so
interested in it, why didn’t you just claim it and squat there? The
chances were good it would have been years before we even found
out.”

“Because I’m an honest man, Mayor. And
because it would be a mite troublesome if ten years from now you
folks get it in your heads that you’d like a military base there,
or this or that, and you come to the place with troops and cannons.
Better for all of us if I just see if I can’t do things
proper.”

“What do you see in the place?”

“I see a place to set down where I ain’t in
nobody’s way. A little spot in a corner where me and my crew will
be left alone to watch the world go by. The life I been leading is
the life of a young man. Most folks don’t do what I do and live as
long as I have, and I’m pretty near finished pressing my luck.
Getting where I am, doing what I done, I made more than my share of
enemies, so living someplace like Lock or Keystone where I’m
shoulder to shoulder with folks who might think I done them dirty
in the past and who’ve been waiting for a chance to return the
favor isn’t likely to be a long-term arrangement. What I’m looking
for is a place to hang my hat, warm my bones, and forget my
troubles. I’m looking to retire. And my crew has done right by me,
so I mean to find a place where they can do the same, if they’ve
got a mind to. Laylow fits the bill.”

“So long as you’re aware of what you’re
getting into. Now, based on the relative value to Lock, the acreage
of the island, and a few more factors, I believe I can let you have
the island for…” He scribbled some figures onto a scrap of paper.
“Seven million victors.”

The captain’s face remained impassive, but he
leaned back a bit in his chair.

“I been working through barter for a bit,
Mayor. Forgive me if I don’t remember quite how much, say, a bag of
Calderan Sea salt stacks up to a coin with the face of an old man
who lost his kingdom to the fug a lifetime ago.”

“Oh, let us see now…” the mayor said,
scratching out some more figures. “The last I saw, a full
five-pound bag of Calderan salt was good for two hundred victors.
That’s… the equivalent of thirty-five thousand bags of salt, or
about… eighty-eight tons of the stuff.”

Mack nodded. “Would you be needing it all up
front?”

“Oh, heavens no. Even someone with your skill
and resources wouldn’t be expected to provide us with the full
payment immediately. I’m not entirely certain there are that many
victors in circulation. I took the liberty of having a word with
the president of the bank. Normally… well, you’re what we would
call a high-risk investment. But since if you were for any reason
unable to pay the full price, we could simply reclaim the island,
he is comfortable with allowing you to acquire it with a twenty
percent down payment. That would be in victors or in equivalent
merchandise. Then there would be the matter of interest, which
would be roughly…”

The captain leaned back a bit farther, eyes
drifting to the ceiling as the mayor ran through the numbers. If
they played their cards right, haggled properly, and sold every
last scrap of stolen goods, the crew combined would just about have
enough to buy the island. There would be another year or so of work
while he squirreled away the money to live on, but with Nita doing
their repairs and the flow of Calderan goods she provided, it
wouldn’t be difficult. He just had to survive that long. He reached
into his pocket and pulled out a twisted, narrow cigar, clamped it
into his yellowed teeth, and lit it.

“You give me a few hours, and I do believe
we’ll be shaking hands on this, Mayor,” Mack said with a grin.

#

On the
Wind Breaker
, things were going
about as well as they could be. Gunner was, by a wide margin, their
best huckster, able to dazzle the locals with his words and
sometimes fetch as much as twice the price that the other crewmen
might earn. The captain’s requirement that an additional lookout be
stationed turned out to be a prudent one, as three potential
customers, upon hearing the price for the products they had their
eyes on, decided it would be much more economical to simply sneak
aboard. Since that required shimmying up the mooring lines, it
wasn’t precisely a subtle affair, and typically Coop only had to
take aim and clear his throat to convince them of the error in
their ways. The third opportunist was now in the process of
climbing toward the ship, and after three progressively louder
throat clearings from Coop, it was obvious he was unwilling or
unable to acknowledge him. Further motivation would be
necessary.

“You know I can see you down there, right?”
Coop said, calling down to the teenage boy who was hanging below
the mooring rope, inching his way up while trying to keep his hat
from blowing off with one hand.

The boy ignored him.

“What’d’you reckon is going to happen once
you get up here?” he asked, aiming a bit more intently.

Still the boy continued.

“You know the law says I can pull the trigger
and it won’t mean nothing but some paperwork, right?” Coop
said.

Again there was no response. The boy had
nearly reached the deck.

“I gotta imagine you’re deef then. I’m gonna
have to do this so’s you can feel it.” He leaned forward. “Which
might be a mite messy if I don’t do it right, so if you
can
hear me, you might want to slide back down now.”