The Assassins of Altis (18 page)

As she had expected, the far-talker was being watched at this hour by an apprentice. Mari gritted her teeth, then brought her rifle to bear on the girl. “Apprentice, I strongly recommend that you don’t move or make any noise while my friend here ties you up.” The girl sat frozen with fear while Alain used more wires to bind her.

Mari laid down her weapon and shut off the main power switch to the far-talker, then started pulling open access panels. Then she just stared at the rows of vacuum tubes gleaming in their sockets, and the ranks of circuit boards with their brightly-banded resistors. “I can’t do it,” she whispered to Alain.

“Do what?” he asked, coming close.

“Break this stuff. Stars above, Alain, I’ve spent my life learning how to fix this gear, how to treat it with respect and keep it working. Do you know how much artistry goes into those tubes and circuit boards? They’re all hand-made. It’s…it’s beautiful.”

“But it must be broken?”

“Yes,” she whispered again.

Alain looked at the butt of his rifle, then at Mari. “Is there anything else you must do in here?”

“Um, I need to check the message log to see if they’ve reported my capture and see if any special orders have come in regarding me.”

“Do that,” Alain said.

With another sick feeling inside, Mari walked over to a desk near the bound apprentice. As she opened the message log, Mari heard the sound of breaking glass and snapping boards. She had to pause, breathing deeply to calm herself, then nerved herself enough to glance back and see Alain energetically pounding his rifle butt into the openings beneath the access panels.

Shuddering at the destruction, Mari quickly scanned the message log.
There’s the report of my capture, then right after that the report about Alain. A far-talker specialist from Umburan? How did he convince them of that? And here I’ve got him smashing this far-talker. But no orders received back yet. I guess the Guild Masters in Palandur are too busy celebrating my capture.
She glanced over at the apprentice. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m not doing any of this because I want to. Please remember that we didn’t harm you. We’re going to put a gag in your mouth, but if you breathe calmly you won’t have any trouble.”

“Are you Master Mechanic Mari?” the apprentice asked hesitantly.

Here it came, a young Mechanic trainee already terrified of her because of the lies her Guild had told. Mari nodded. “Yes.”

To Mari’s shock, the apprentice turned pleading eyes on her. “Take me with you.”

“What?”

“Please. I want to join you. Whatever you’re doing.”

Mari had to think for a moment before answering. She had never expected to receive such a request from someone she didn’t even know. “Listen, it’s too dangerous. My friend and I have very little chance of getting off of this ship alive. Stay here and you’ll be all right. Come with us and you’ll probably die very soon or be captured and treated as a traitor.”

The apprentice shook her head. “But—”

“There’ll be another time. Somehow. Please don’t risk yourself now.”

She nodded to Mari. “How will we find you?”

We?
Mari stared again. “There are still some things I need to do, but after that I’ll find a way to let the right people know.”

“And we’ll be able to build anything we want? The Guild won’t be able to tell us not to anymore? The Senior Mechanics won’t be able to do anything they want?”

“That’s what I hope for.”

The apprentice nodded. “Put the gag in my mouth. Good luck, Master Mechanic Mari. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

“I do? More than I realized, it seems. But I’ve also got a lot of enemies, and I don’t want people like you hurt by those enemies. Good luck to you, Apprentice…?”

“Madoka.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Apprentice Madoka.” Mari gently placed the gag in the apprentice’s mouth, then stepped back and nodded farewell. Then she grabbed Alain and rushed from the room.

Closing that door behind her, Mari paused again for a moment. “Now the engine room. That’s the last thing we need to do. We need to take out the boiler.”

“The boiler?” Alain asked, his eyes showing a most unmage-like level of alarm. “You are going to destroy a boiler? Like the one in Dorcastle?”

Mari glared at him. “No. Not like that. Why is it whenever I talk about a boiler you think I intend exploding it?”

“That has been my experience.”

“I am a Mechanic! I am trained to fix things! I only break things under the direst necessity!” Mari paused. “Like now. But I won’t blow up this boiler. That would kill a lot of the crew. I have to disable it some other way. Come on.”

Alain followed Mari as she hurried back down the ladder. “It’s going to be low inside the ship,” she told him. After taking some more turns and ladders down, they ran into another lone Mechanic, who gazed at them in surprise.

“The captain has told us to take these packs down to a place near the boiler,” Alain said, surprising Mari.

“You mean the armory?”

“Yes,” Alain agreed with a readiness that awed Mari. She suspected that he had no idea what an armory was, but Alain still acted completely self-assured.

“You took a wrong turn, then. It’s quicker if you go back to port, two ladders down and then you’ll see it just aft.”

“Thank you,” Alain said, then paused just long enough for Mari to nudge him to the left as the other Mechanic went about his business.

Sure enough, when they reached the bottom of the second ladder Mari could feel the heat from the boiler room and easily found the hatch leading into it. She put her hand on the lever to open the hatch, looking back at Alain. “There’ll be more than one person tending the boiler even at night. I need to handle this one. Stay back and follow my lead.”

She could tell Alain was shocked when they entered. What would a Mage think of this, a world made entirely of Mechanic creations? Heat pulsed through the boiler room. Tubes of various sizes led everywhere, snaking around the room like a forest of straight, curved and bent vines which had overgrown the room and then somehow been turned to metal. In the center, the huge squat metal cylinder that was the boiler radiated the heat which filled the air and brought sweat springing out on their skin.

Mari walked toward the boiler as it rumbled with the fires and steam within, for the first time really understanding why Alain thought of boilers as a sort of creature like a Mage dragon. She held her weapon casually, as if not planning to use it.

Another Mechanic sat near the boiler, his face flushed with the heat, staring glumly at various dials and other objects in the age-old attitude of someone standing a boring and routine watch.

This watch wouldn’t be either boring or routine, though. “I have a message from the captain,” Mari explained as the Mechanic turned to look at her. She had to speak a little loudly to be heard over the growl of the broiler and the hum of the vent fans driving air. “I need all the Mechanics on duty here to listen to it.”

“Sure.” The Mechanic looked backwards and yelled. “Hey, Yon and Gayl, we got a message from the captain!”

A few moments later the other two Mechanics came walking up from different directions, both wearing clothes marked by sweat. One was a girl not much older than Mari and the other a man who seemed close to the captain’s age.

Mari waited until the three were all together, then brought her rifle to bear on them. “I’m sorry to report that the prisoner has escaped and is threatening to shoot anyone who makes any noise. Which one of these lines is the fuel feed for the boiler?”

The three Mechanics stared at her, but none of them spoke. “All right, have it your way.” She gestured to Alain. “Keep them covered.” Alain gazed back, his expression controlled but betraying confusion to her since she knew him well. “That means point your weapon at them,” Mari hissed in a low whisper.

“But you told me not to—” -“

“Until now! Point it at them now!”

He nodded, somewhat clumsily pointing his rifle in the direction of the three Mechanics, none of whom seemed to doubt Alain’s capability to use the weapon. Mari bent down, studying the labeling on the many pipes running by. Fortunately, the labels were as standardized as everything else the Mechanics Guild maintained. She quickly spotted the right pipe by the color and its code. The pipe was down low, just above the deck gratings and about as big around as her finger.

Now what? She needed to break this in a way that couldn’t be easily or quickly fixed, yet not threaten the lives of every other Mechanic on this ship. Mari beckoned to Alain, then pointed to the pipe. “That’s the fuel line feeding the boiler. Can you make part of it disappear?”

Alain studied it for a moment. “How much?”

“Just a little. Like so,” she indicated with spread finger and thumb.

“There is little power available. I can only do this once.”

“That’s all we need. But wait a moment.” The fact that Alain was a Mage remained unknown to the Mechanics Guild so far, and maybe it should stay that way a little longer. Mari faced the other Mechanics. “Turn around. I won’t hurt you if you turn around.” The three Mechanics exchanged frightened glances, then first one and then the other two turned and faced away from her. “Now, Alain.”

“Very well.” Mari saw Alain take on a look of concentration, and a section of the pipe vanished. Thick fuel oil started gushing from one end of the gap, its strong smell immediately obvious.

Mari stood back and kicked hard several times, forcing one end of the pipe at the gap out of alignment. “Okay.”

Alain relaxed and the missing segment returned, though since Mari had kicked the end of the pipe away the restored segment now no longer matched up and the fuel continued to splash out, covering a spreading area of the deck and dripping down into the bilges. “You’re very handy to have around when I need to break something,” she commented. “All right,” Mari called to the three other Mechanics, “we’re are leaving now.” She gestured with the weapon. “Out.”

Mari went last, her head beginning to ache from the fumes of the fuel oil still pouring from the pipe. The lights around them started dimming and one of the Mechanics made an abortive move back. Mari stopped him with a threatening move of her weapon. “No fuel’s going to the boiler, so it’s losing steam pressure fast,” she explained to Alain. “The fires will go out in a very short while. Then the steam pressure will totally fall off and the electricity will fail as well as the propulsion.”

He nodded, then shook his head.

Oh, right. He doesn’t even know what a lever is and I’m explaining a steam plant’s operation to him.
“But that’s not enough. We need to start a fire.”

“Fire?” Alain looked doubtful, and she noticed that he seemed to be drawn and tired. “I have done a great deal since coming aboard.”

“I’m sorry. It’s important.”

He sighed. “You always say that, and I always find a way. Where?”

“The liquid. It will burn, but it has a high flashpoint. That means it needs a lot of heat to get it burning.”

“I will do what I can.” The three captive Mechanics were just outside the hatch, unable to see what Alain was doing. Mari stood in the hatch watching them but keeping one worried eye on Alain as well.

Alain held his hand before him, palm up, looking at it. The air above his hand began to glow noticeably as the lights of the ship dimmed more. Alain looked back into the boiler room toward the pool of liquid beneath the broken pipe, and the glowing air above his hand vanished.

Flame fountained out in a frightening blast that drove Alain, Mari and the three other Mechanics away from the open hatch. Mari glared at the three captives. “Get out of here! Run!” They stared at her, then turned and bolted.

Alain stared as well. “Is that wise?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Mari growled. “Leave them in the fire? Walk around holding three Mechanics at gunpoint? Tie them up and maybe let them burn or drown? I will not kill if I don’t absolutely have to!” She paused, remembering something. “Blast. Come on.”

Mari led them back at a run to the place where she and Alain had been imprisoned, their journey complicated when the lighting on the ship went out and only a few replacement lights sprang on to provide dim illumination. “Battery-powered emergency lamps,” Mari explained, looking back and seeing that Alain had his
whatever-you-say
expression on, meaning he understood nothing but was willing to accept that she did. Amid her fears she felt a surge of real joy at his trust in her, trust that meant all the more since he had plenty of grounds for knowing she wasn’t perfect by any means.

But she also noticed that Alain was visibly struggling to keep up with her, gasping for breath as he followed. Despite her urgency, Mari slowed down some.

Along with the lights, the fans providing air through the ship had now died, leaving an eerie silence in their wake punctuated by growing numbers of alarmed cries from members of the crew and the sound of feet thundering on the metal decks as Mechanics dashed to and fro in hopes of discovering the problem. Mari, seeing Alain faltering more, stepped back to help him keep moving. “They can shut off the fuel and get that fire out, but by the time they do that we should be off this ship,” she explained, trying to cover her growing fear with talking. “The boiler room will be badly damaged. They won’t be able to get steam up again for quite a while.”

Finally reaching the place where they had been confined, Mari stopped at the locked hatch, unfastened the lock, then lifted the handle and yanked the hatch open. The five Mechanics inside stared back. “I won’t leave anyone locked in a room on a ship that might sink,” Mari announced. “But if any of you come after me I’ll blow your heads off. Understood?” Without waiting for a reply she grabbed Alain again and ran for the closest ladder at the best pace which Alain could manage.

Reaching the next level up, Mari hesitated, looking in each possible direction, then ran up another ladder, thinking that would take her to the main deck level. Alain leaned on her, struggling up the steep steps, as the tumult grew around them. The ship’s crew dashed around and past them, staggering as the ship rolled drunkenly in the seas, its last traces of headway lost without the propulsion system working anymore.