World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (26 page)

Draksgollow sat at the head of the table. All down the sides were the best mechanics, machinists, and assistant tinkers he employed. He even had two of his rune-carvers handy. Not a single one of them was under the age of fifty, and grey was the most common color of beard around the table. Experience. That was what he needed. Fresh blood, fresh bodies, fresh ideas were all well and good, but he needed older eyes on this problem, eyes that had seen it all.

What needed seeing were the six coil guns scattered around the table. They passed the coil guns around, each man looking them over with a critical eye. Draksgollow gave them time undisturbed though they grumbled to one another as they passed the weapons around. Identical guns would get the same man’s eye on them for minutes at a time even after he had seen three or four just like it. It was the way men like these were made, and Draksgollow wouldn’t have them any other way.

“Well?” he asked at length, once most of the coil guns had been returned to a cluster at the center of the table.

“Can’t see how it can possibly work,” said Stipsin.

“Work’s consistent, except the wrapped copper wire is a bit unruly,” said Temmuth. “You got schematics for it?”

“I want to take one apart, see what’s under that wire wrap,” said Eithur.

“Runes are shit,” said Sak, with a dismissive wave. “I’d send these all back, have ‘em ground smooth and redone.”

“What about the runes themselves, though?” Draksgollow asked. “Forget the layman’s-grade carving job for a minute; you got any idea what they do?”

Sak shrugged. “Nope. I can make another one, does it the same though.”

Draksgollow nodded. “Good enough. And yeah, I’ve got three more of these under lock and key, you boys can tear these down to bits and bolts to figure out how they’re made. I want a hundred a day coming out by the end of next month.”

There was silence around the table.

“Yer full of it,” said Stipsin.

“I ain’t,” Draksgollow replied.

Another silence followed.

“What’s so big about these, anyway?” Sak asked. “Why you need so many, so soon?”

“Boys, I seen a steam tank turned into a sieve by one of these,” said Draksgollow. “We dug a half inch ball bearing out of two feet of rock; got put there by one of these. That ain’t natural. But blast me, I want ‘em, and I want a lot of ‘em.”

“What for? We goin’ into the munitions business?”

“Step back a second, boys,” Draksgollow said. “You seen the papers, you know what we’ve been up to. World’s going down the incinerator chute, and these rebels are greasing the slide. More of ‘em poppin’ up every day, seems like.”

All around the table, men nodded, beard braids bobbing.

“Well,” said Draksgollow, “I finally figured out what we need to do about it.”

“What’s that?”

“We need a new crop of humans,” Draksgollow replied. “Got a whole world filled with ‘em, on the other side of that machine. We just get us rid of the humans we’ve got … maybe keep a few, just to train the new ones … and replace ‘em wholesale.”

“That’s a lot of humans,” said Sak.

“We’ll have a lot of guns,” Draksgollow replied, holding up one of the coil guns.

Chapter 20

“The moon is a ball of basaltic and igneous rock, devoid of air and water. Even if we should find some vessel by which to reach it, the environment is entirely unable to support life. Keep your dreams of fanciful cities upon the moon in the cheap newsstand novels where they belong.  ” –Astronomer Bendavik Wethbarry

The world hole opened without fanfare. There was neither ceremony nor lingering. As soon as the machine sprang to life, Rynn ushered her charges through and into the lunar headquarters. Jamile had won her argument with Cadmus, and he had consented to populate the facility with a small staff, as well as one additional guest.

Greuder came first, the only one of the group who looked eager to be coming. He looked all around, including up at the ceiling, before continuing in to make way for the others. “I’d swear I was dreaming, if I was the dreaming sort,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve cooked up a wonder here. That’s for sure.”

Kaia followed shortly behind, giving the Mad Tinker a quick nod of acknowledgment before hustling past. A pack slung over her shoulder was all the luggage she said she needed.

“Well, would you look at this place?” Kupe said as he wandered through the world hole. He wore a close-fit wood jacket and a matching wool cap, the short brim pulled low just above his eyes. Carrying nothing, he chose to keep his hands in his pockets as he gawked, eyes drawn to the inlet and outlet world-rippers that showed a jungle river at either end of the chamber. He turned back toward Rynn. “‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she says. Girl, if I’d have told anyone about this place, they’d cuss me out for being drunk.”

As a few workers carried supplies and the staff’s personal effects into the headquarters, Kupe took the opportunity to introduce himself. “You must be Jamile,” he said with an endearing smile. He took her hand and kissed it. “Your sister told me all about you.”

Jamile allowed herself a tight smile. Kupe just didn’t understand the idea of twinborn, and it didn’t seem worth the trouble it would take to explain it. “I hope it was all flattering.”

Kupe winked. “Didn’t do you justice. I think she might be jealous, cuz you’re the prettier one.”

Cadmus ignored the newcomers for the moment, aside from a brief handshake and a word of greeting as he passed Greuder on his way to the viewframe. He stopped short of passing through and spoke to Rynn as if the hole were a physical barrier between them. “How goes the work in Veydrus?”

Rynn opened her eyes wide and shook her head slowly. “I can hardly believe it. Those goblins are like sponges. The old one I met first seems to be the exception, but most of them don’t take much initiative or show a lot of original thinking. But you wouldn’t believe how quick they pick things up. Four or five of them speak passable Korrish already.”

Cadmus held up a hand to stop her flood of praise for the goblin people. “Production?”

Rynn shrugged. “Spark is new to them, wholly new. I don’t think any of them considered lightning anything more than a destructive force, and it’s taking them—”

“I don’t care if they understand it. I just want them working.”

“Whose plan was this, anyway?” Rynn asked.

“You tell me the little rodents are brilliant. Then, on the next hand, you’re trying to give them the academic underpinnings of a whole new branch of science. We want hard-working goblins, making weapons to free Korr. I don’t want to worry that they’ll figure out how world-rippers
actually
work before we do and make their own. I don’t want them deciding they can wipe humans off the face of Veydrus.”

“Bit late to be thinking of
that
, now isn’t it?”

Cadmus pushed his spectacles up higher on his nose. It was a nervous habit Jamile had noticed; he didn’t do it often, and never, it seemed, because there was anything wrong with how the spectacles were serving him. “It’s a juggler’s dilemma. All these balls we’re keeping in the air … they
are
going to fall. It’s just a matter of when, and in what order. I won’t abandon the humans of Veydrus, but I’ll look after my own people first. The time may come though when we have a goblin problem to deal with.”

“Or a dragon problem?”

Cadmus shrugged. “In that world, they’d appear to be the same thing.”

“So,” Kupe said, slinking up behind Cadmus. “Goblins and dragons, huh? Did I just get shipped off to the bedtime story division?”

Cadmus glowered at him. “I suppose I should have expected wandering ears from you. Must be a hazard of the occupation.”

Kupe cocked his head to the side. “How’s that again?”

“You’re a newsman, I hear. I imagine listening to conversations that don’t concern you are second nature.”

“Oh,” said Kupe, a broad smile replacing the bemused look he had a moment before. “You musta been around too many kuduks. They use that term for anyone that works at the paper. Mostly they’re thinkin’ reporters, though. Me? I don’t write for the papers … shoot, I don’t even read much past the headline of the day so I know what to shout about. I just bring ‘em around and hawk ‘em.”

“So … you’re one of those tunnel-rat news haulers who takes in a few tenar a day passing out papers,” Cadmus said. “And you’re the one who we’re using to help recruit?”

“Yep,” Kupe said, thrusting his chest out and standing up on his toes for a second.

Cadmus turned to Rynn, and there was an unasked question in his eyes.

“We need to keep him out of sight,” said Rynn. “He needs an air of mystery around him, and …” Rynn looked at Kupe with a mild frown and pursed lips.

“Mysterious, huh?” Kupe asked. “We’re makin’ me more mysterious? I like the sound of that.”

Rynn glanced sidelong at Kupe before addressing Cadmus as if the news hauler hero wasn’t there. “And the more he talks to people, the harder that is to keep up.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true, Kupe,” Rynn said. “You’re a news hauler and everyone’s best friend. You practically soiled yourself the one gunfight you were in. You can’t shoot straight, and in a fair fight, I’d put my money on Jamile over you. The only way you get to pretend you’re a hero is if people don’t know you.”

Kupe wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I got ya,” he muttered. Jamile felt like she was watching someone beat a puppy. Kupe slunk off and followed the luggage trail out of the main chamber. She watched and waited until he was gone, well out of earshot, before she insinuated herself between Cadmus and Rynn.

“What did you do that for?” Jamile demanded, pointing a finger squarely at Rynn’s chest.

“Do what for?” Rynn asked. “Kupe’s spouting off like some warrior king every time we bring him around to a new group of rebels. He can’t keep that up on ship, and if he did, he’d get himself killed trying to back up his own boasts. You’re not the one listening to him. You’d think he was a bareknuckle fighter, a crashball enforcer, and a military genius all rolled into one. Except he’s a newsboy turned actor. I put him up on stage because I need to convince would-be rebels that we need to work together and not just act like a bunch of scattered gangs.”

“I meant why’d you hurt his feelings,” said Jamile.

Rynn was quiet for a moment and glanced away. “If he gets his feelings hurt that easy, we can’t have him around the
Jennai
. He’s bad for morale when people see him sulking and worrying, and he’s only good at the hero act when he’s had a couple drinks in him.”

“Can’t you just get him liquored, then?” Cadmus asked.

“Cadmus!” Jamile scolded. “That’s terrible.”

Cadmus shrugged. “Plenty of men do it willingly. It was just a thought.”

“You have a lot to learn about dealing with regular people,” Jamile said.

The corner of Rynn’s mouth twitched before resuming its abashed look. “I think this is where I duck out.” She stepped back from the viewframe and shut down her world-ripper. The world hole disappeared.

“What did you mean by that?” Cadmus asked. “Normal people?”

“People who aren’t twinborn, or tinkers, or soldiers … just normal people.”

“You just listed most of the people I know,” said Cadmus.

“Well, you employed people who were as much like you as you could find,” said Jamile. “Your twin was cooped up with a crazy old daruu. You never really saw normal humans.”

“There was a serving girl from the kitchens at my patron’s estate in Eversall …,” Cadmus said.

Jamile raised her eyebrows and grinned. “And …?”

“I got her to help me work on the prototype for the original world-ripper,” Cadmus said. “Smart girl, once you got her out of the kitchens for a while.”

Jamile walked away, smiling despite herself. “You’re hopeless, Cadmus.”

The dormitory of the lunar headquarters was so new that the rock was still dusty from the auger. Jamile had made a cursory attempt to clean it in anticipation of their new arrivals, but the rock was porous and the powdery residue had worked its way into every pore and crevice. She hoped, as she walked down to see how her new neighbors were faring, that they didn’t mind having a bit left to clean up for themselves.

Kaia was unpacking her clothes as Jamile poked her head in. The room was furnished with a bed, table and chair, wardrobe, and dresser, all pillaged from one of the finer hotels in Korr. Aside from a whiff of snooty kuduk perfumes, it was pleasant enough.

“How are you holding up this time around?” Jamile asked.

Kaia flipped a lock of hair over her ear as she looked up from folding a blouse. “I get my own room this time, instead of a cot in the corner of the pantry. I’m not going to be sick because my stomach thinks I’m falling. There’s someone here to talk to besides the tinker … yeah, I’m holding up.”

“Think you can stick with it this time?”

Kaia smiled. “Don’t worry about
me
. I’d go see how that big, strong hero is holding up across the way. Heard him muttering to himself, but I didn’t dare knock.”

“Why not?”

“You know …” Kaia replied. “Because. Just … because.”

“I see,” Jamile said with a wink. “You don’t want to intrude on his moment of quiet reflection.”

Kaia looked everywhere but at Jamile and nodded. “Something like that.”

“Well, I’ll go see how he is.”

Jamile shut the door behind her and knocked on Kupe’s. The doors were taken from the same hotel as the furnishings, ripped from the stone and mortared in place at Cadmus’s direction.
We’d have taken the whole hotel if the world-holes were big enough
. When Kupe didn’t answer, she knocked again.

“Kupe, it’s—”

“I know who it is,” Kupe replied through the door. “This place ain’t that big for guessing games. Just hold on a minute.”

She heard the rustling of fabric from the other side of the door. A second later she stopped herself and pulled her ear away from the door, worried that if Kupe opened the door suddenly, it might look as if she had been listening at it.

When Kupe pulled the door open a moment later, she was glad she had thought ahead.
Rynn’s paranoia is rubbing off, I guess
. Kupe stood bare-chested, his hair disheveled, wearing a different pair of trousers than he had when he came through the world-hole.

“What’s it?” he asked, chest heaving from—apparently—rushing to put clothes on.

Jamile averted her eyes and took a step back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you indecent.”

Kupe gave her that lopsided smile of his. She shouldn’t have noticed it, she realized, because she
wasn’t
looking at him. “You didn’t. Come on in. Sosha never mentioned they were tight-eyed where you were from. I’ll throw a shirt on, if it makes you feel better.”

“Please,” Jamile replied.

She felt foolish turning her back while Kupe finished dressing. She was a nurse, after all. He was far from the first man she’d seen unclothed—and Kupe could have only been considered unclad by the most prudish of definitions. But that was medical. This was … well, if she didn’t know better, she would think that Kupe was waiting half-dressed on purpose, wanting to be seen.
But maybe not by me? Kaia is cute as a thimble.
Jamile had been raised by her aunt, a woman who had always kept an eye for couples. It was her pastime and guilty pleasure, seeing young people get together.
When did I get to be so old?
Jamile wondered.
Either of them has three years on me, easily; Kupe maybe five. It’s Rynn’s influence. That girl is as old as Cadmus inside.