Skykeep (8 page)

In response, the boy reached the deck and
hauled his way up. As soon as his head popped up above the railing,
he felt the barrel of Coop’s rifle press against his forehead. Now
suddenly
very
aware of the man he’d been ignoring thus far,
the boy froze.

“This here is a fugger rifle. I don’t know if
you ever seen what one of these can do to a turbine, but that ain’t
nothing compared to what it’ll do to a head,” Coop said.

“You wouldn’t shoot me, I’m just a kid,” he
said.

“If you was just a kid, o’ course I wouldn’t
shoot. But you ain’t just a kid. You’re also a thief, and shooting
thieves is more or less what I’m getting paid to do right now.”

“I don’t believe you’d pull the—”

A deafening blast rang out, and the boy’s hat
fluttered down to the pier with a brand new hole in it. Now hatless
and missing a few inches across the middle of the wild tuft of hair
the hat had concealed, the boy was suddenly quite eager to leave
the
Wind Breaker
.

Coop watched as the boy slid down the line
and rushed in a panic through the crowd. Below him, he could hear
Gunner putting the demonstration to good use.

“What you just saw and heard was an example
of the peerless workmanship that goes into each and every firearm
assembled in the fug. Most days the only chance you’d get to see
one of these fine weapons up close would be if you had the
fortitude to storm a fugger facility, and even then you’d likely
only see them pointed in your direction. But not today, folks.
Today you can see them
in person
because my colleagues and I
did the storming
for
you. And for the right price, you can
own
one of these fine weapons. Purchase one today and I’ll
even throw in the instructions you’ll need in order to fabricate
your own ammunition. This procedure was developed and tested by me,
a formally trained student of Circa Naval Academy and a crucial
member of the very crew that bested the dreaded dreadnought…”

He continued his pitch, and not long after
sold three of the rifles and a fair amount of ammunition for each.
A few minutes later the crowd had dwindled, and Gunner decided to
reel in the gig and join Coop on the deck. He brought with him the
mysterious weapon he’d been tinkering with off and on since the
heist.

“I tell you, Gunner. It’s like you’re a
different fella down there when you’re doing the sales routine,”
Coop said.

“It makes me feel filthy. There are such
better usages of my time. But it is a necessary evil.”

Coop looked to Gunner. “Just so we’re clear,
that’s a gun you’re fiddling with, right?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“For killing folks?”

“Ideally.”

“And
selling things
to folks is the
necessary evil?”

“Indeed.”

“That’s a special sort of thinking right
there.”

“No offense, Coop, but I’m not interested in
a philosophical debate, and you’d be ill equipped to handle one in
any case.”

“I ain’t much for debate anyways,” Coop said,
working industriously to dislodge a piece of his lunch from his
teeth. “Hey, listen. I was thinking maybe a poem.”

Gunner stopped tinkering and looked up. “What
in the world are you talking about?”

“For Nita. She likes art and all that. I’m
going to buy her something nice, but I know it’ll mean more if I
make her something. I can’t paint worth a lick, or draw. I could
play the spoons, or maybe dig out my harmonica, but that doesn’t
seem like it’d impress her much. But poems aren’t so bad. I could
write a poem. Do you think she’d like that?”

“I need to be certain I understand this
correctly. You are going to attempt to win Nita’s heart with a
poem.”

“Not win her heart. Just sort of let her know
I might be after it. But why not a poem? Don’t Calderans like
poems?”

Gunner sighed. “This may come as a surprise
to you, but a single set of likes, dislikes, and behaviors cannot
be applied universally to an entire society. Nita, you’ll notice,
is quite different from the typical Calderan as we’ve come to know
them. But since I’m not certain there is room in your head to
accept people as individuals, let us assume that your premise here
applies. Yes. Calderans like poems. They like them
so
much
that some Calderans devote their lives to poetry. They spend hours
a day ruminating on the very nature of language. Months are spent
attempting to craft the perfect verse and experimenting with
different meters.”

“So you’re saying she’ll like it,” Coop
said.

Gunner sighed more heavily. “Yes, Coop. If
you are able to write a beautiful poem, I am sure she will like
it.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard. It just has to
rhyme, right?”

“Poetry need not necessarily rhyme, no.”

“… Well, then how do you know it’s even
poetry?”

“If you can’t tell if something is a poem,
then it isn’t a poem. And may I ask how you intend to write a poem
when you can barely write your own name?”

“I don’t figure I’ll have to write my name in
a poem, Gunner. Oh, ’cept at the end, so’s people can tell who
wrote it.”

Gunner shook his head and turned back to his
work. “Coop, something tells me regardless of what you come up
with, people are going to be able to tell who wrote it.”

#

Nita and Lil had been making good progress.
Despite taking time to make sure Lil understood each step, most of
the smaller assemblies were already together after just a few
hours. They were just preparing to tackle the safety mechanisms
when their food arrived, along with a basin of water and some clean
towels to wash up.

“I’ll tell you what,” Lil mumbled, her mouth
filled to bursting with the fourth big bite of sandwich. “These
Lock folk sure know how to pack a meal.” She washed the mouthful
down with a sip of milk. “Ah… you can just
feel
it doing you
good.”

Nita took a sip. From her expression, she was
less convinced. “It’s definitely… different.”

“Oh, you just gotta get used to it. This
stuff puts meat on you.” She crunched into the sandwich. “I tell
you. If Butch could get her hands on a proper kitchen and some good
fresh stuff like this, she’d have a restaurant with a line out the
door.”

“It’s true.” She took another small sip and
gathered her thoughts. “I’ve got to say, and forgive me if it
sounds rude, but I didn’t think very highly of the crew when I
first met you all.”

Lil shrugged. “There ain’t too many high
thoughts to be had about us.”

“But you’ve all struck me with your skills
and your work ethic. I wish I could see what any one of you could
accomplish if you didn’t have to spend so much time shuttling from
place to place and just trying to stay alive.”

“All of us? I mean, Gunner’s educated and all
that. And the cap’n a
cap’n.
Butch’s good with food and
stitching folks up. But what about me and Coop?” Lil asked. “We
don’t do nothing but what we’re told. What could
we
do?”

“Lil, please. Give yourselves the credit you
deserve. The two of you are easily the most capable and dedicated
people I’ve ever worked with,” Nita said. “You’re deckhands. Like
you told me, you do
everything
on the ship. I learned so
much more from the two of you than I did from the others, and far
more than you’re ever likely to learn from me. The question isn’t
‘What
could
you do?’ The question is ‘What
couldn’t
you do?’”

“Well Nita… I’m fit to blush right now,” Lil
said.

“I’m just telling you what you should already
know.” Nita took a bite of her sandwich and glanced over the
remaining parts. “If we keep going with this pump, we might just
get it done today. Would you like to keep at it?”

“Let’s get to it!” Lil said. She stuffed the
remainder of her sandwich into her mouth and sprayed some crumbs as
she continued speaking. “You just sit and finish eating and tell me
what needs doing.”

She wiped her hands on her pants and knelt on
the floor, picking up the next parts in the pile. Her nose
wrinkled. “Got a fresh whiff of the fug just then. They better plug
that hole right quick or it ain’t gonna be much fun to work here.
But what do we got next? This here’s just a pipe. Threaded on
either end. Nothing special about that. This is one of them input
valves. We already got some of them, so I guess this one is extra.”
She picked up a component that was a veritable contraption, pipes
leading in and out and a tall metallic cap sticking up from the
middle with a screw protruding from the end of it. “This is… what
is this?”

“Think about it for a second,” Nita said.

Lil turned it over and twisted it about.
“Well… oh… oh wait, this is one of them… it’s a valve, but a
special one. The… dang it, what is it… the relief valve!”

“That’s right. And what’s it for?”

“For letting steam out when there’s no place
else for steam to come out.”

“And why is that important?”

“Because steam’s got to go somewhere, and if
it can’t go somewhere, it’s gonna go
everywhere
. That’s when
the thing blows.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“So then that goes right here,” Lil said,
springing to her feet and grabbing a wrench.

“Wait!” Nita said. “What are you
forgetting?”

“… What?”

“You need to inspect it.”

“Oh, well I already did that. Look at this
thing. Good and shiny.”

“I don’t care what it looks like on the
outside. The workings are what matters. I’ll put the ugliest piece
of mangled metal in that pile onto a boiler if the inside is sound,
but if one piece is out of place in a relief valve, the whole
boiler is a risk.”

“So I gotta unscrew this top part then?”

“Yes indeed,” Nita said, handing Lil a
screwdriver from her sash.

The eager student carefully twisted free two
of the screws. As she started on the third, Nita issued a
warning.

“Now you’ll want to put some pressure on the
top of that while you unscrew the other two screws. There’s a
spring inside there, and it is under compression. You don’t want
the top to pop off and send those screws flying. I found that out
the hard way.”

“Hey, I was wondering,” Lil said, putting the
gadget down and pressing on the top with one hand while she worked
at the remaining screws. “Let’s say your papa does his thing, and
it turns out we’re allowed to go with you on shore in Caldera. What
do folks do there? What would you want to show us?”

“Oh, it is a wonderful place, Lil. I’d
have
to take you to the Dell Harbor gallery. Our family has
a whole
wing
devoted to us. I never made anything worth
displaying there, but my brother has a sculpture, and a portrait of
my sister is hanging there as well. And my mother’s sculptures… I
tell you, she could have filled the wing all by herself. And did I
tell you? She’s back to sculpting!”

Lil nodded and smiled. “Only about a dozen
times. Them fuggers make good medicine. That all you folks do,
though? Make your own art and look at other folks’s art?”

“Oh no. We do… well, we do everything you
people do out here. It just tends to be a bit more elaborate. More
deliberate.”

Lil removed the final screw and slowly
released the pressure on the top. “I thought you said there was a
spring squeezed in here.”

“There should be. For regulating
pressure.”

“It didn’t pop or nothing.” She pulled the
top off. Inside was a set of rods holding a cover on an opening in
the main pipe.

“Let me see that,” Nita said.

Lil handed it over. “Is it broke or
something?”

“It isn’t broken. This never would have
worked. The way these pieces are… this was designed to fail.”

“That’s no good. Where’d’ya reckon they got
this, then?”

“We’re certainly going to find out,” Nita
said. She set the remainder of her sandwich down on the tray and
paced to the door, opening it. “Matthews! Would you come here
please?”

Lil coughed. “Gosh dang it that fug smell is
strong with that door open,” she said, waving the stench away.

In moments the sound of footsteps echoed
toward them, accompanied by the light of a mining helmet. Matthews,
in his bizarre mixture of business attire accessorized with mining
equipment, appeared at the door.

“Good evening. I trust the food was to your
liking?” he said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind
him.

“That it was, darlin’. My compliments to the
cook,” Lil said.

“May I ask where you got these parts?” Nita
asked.

“Most of them were salvaged from the broken
airships of whatever unfortunate soul was most recently banned by
the fug folk.”

“This one is
very
fresh. It doesn’t
look like it was ever used.”

“It probably never was. Most of the people
banned by the fug folk have their ships returned to them prior to
repair work being done. That means a lot of replacement parts are
left on board from the prerepair inspection.”

“Well, this part is very dangerous, and
deliberately so. There should be a spring in here, and it was
replaced with a solid rod. This isn’t broken. I don’t think there’s
any other word for it but sabotage.”

“Really…” he said, taking the part to look it
over. “You’re sure?”

“This isn’t the sort of thing that could be
done by mistake.”

He looked over the part for a few more
seconds, then handed it back. “Here. Take it. I’ll summon the
mayor. He’ll want to hear about this personally. Is there any work
you can continue to do while I fetch him?”

“There’s plenty left to be done. As long as
none of the other parts are dangerous, we can leave the relief
valve for last.”

“If you would do so, it would be much
appreciated,” he said. “I’ll get the mayor right away.”