Driftmetal (11 page)

In that moment, everything in me wanted to leave
those stupid primies behind and never look back. Everything, that
is, except the one tiny part of me that knew I couldn’t. Curse that
part of me.

“Time to get up, fellas,” I said. “Wakey, wakey. We
gotta get off this floater before we’re knee-deep in
law-lovers.”

Blaylocke jolted awake; Chaz shifted in his bunk and
opened his eyes. The two men looked at me with bleary,
uncomprehending expressions. It was dark in the cabin, so I lit an
oil lamp and sat down to wait for them.

Blaylocke felt around on the floor, in his pockets,
under the bed. He grabbed the overhead crossbeam and pulled himself
into a seated position. He narrowed his eyes at me, then glanced
around on the floor. “Where is it? I know you took it.”

“Get up,” I said. “Vilaris and I got into some
trouble. Pack your things and gather all the food you can carry.
We’re abandoning ship.”

I packed my own bag, then climbed to the deck to
look out for Vilaris. He hadn’t returned after another fifteen
minutes, by which time Blaylocke and Chaz had joined me above. The
crowds below the cliffside elevators were beginning to clear out as
night descended, and the winds howling through the canyon put a
chill in the air. Many of the fires around us had gone out, leaving
the twin cities to gleam on their perches far in the distance.

Seeing my chance, I slipped belowdecks. A rush of
warm air assailed me when I entered the furnace room. The
potbelly’s slatted iron door squealed as I opened it to reveal the
warm embers within. I took out the sub-signal remote and split it
open with a chisel, ripped out its guts, and tossed the remains
onto the fire.
No more crackler. No more listening in while I
piss and brush my teeth. They have no choice but to trust me the
rest of the way
. I threw another shovelful of coals into the
furnace and was back on deck in under a minute.

Vilaris jogged out of the darkness and climbed
aboard. “I found a boat. It’s not as big as we wanted, and the
crew’s small too, but it’s something. Oh, I should also mention
that there are police officers roaming the airfield, looking for
us. It took me a long time to get back because I had to dodge
them.”

“How far away is the ship?” I asked. “I’m just
wondering if we should try bringing some of the supplies and food
with us.”

Vilaris ran a hand through his hair. In the
moonlight, I could see a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead.
“We loaded the
Clarity
with enough food to last us three
weeks. Chaz has all kinds of tools and tech stuffed away in there,
too. I don’t see a reason not to bring a little of it, if we can.
The ship is further out, fifty yards or so from the aft edge of
Mallentis. That way.” He pointed.

Blaylocke grabbed my arm. “Get inside. Clint, you
too. Cops are coming.”

We hurried down the stairs and into the ship. When I
glanced back, Blaylocke was standing on deck with his hands at his
sides, fists clenched, taking a deep, calming breath. Chaz was
hunkered down in the stairwell, staying out of sight.
My fate is
now in the hands of a guy who hates my guts
, I realized.

The furnace room was still warm when Vilaris and I
entered. The new coals were glowing red above a layer of white
powder, and there was a burning plastic smell in the air.

“What
is
that?” Vilaris said, wrinkling his
nose.

I changed the subject. “This couldn’t get much
worse, could it?” I said. “I’m sorry for being a wanted man. This
is more trouble than you deserve.”

“Gareth won’t give us away,” Vilaris said. “There
are times when his being uptight isn’t such a bad thing.”

Muffled voices came from above, reverberating along
the rafters. A smooth, no-nonsense cop’s voice. Blaylocke’s
cocksure drone. Another cop. Blaylocke again. “You’re welcome,
officers. I’ll be sure to let you know if I see anything.”

“This is bad,” I said.

“It sounds like they’re going away,” said
Vilaris.

“They want us to think so. No cop gives up that
easily. That customs officer by the elevators recognized me on
sight. There must be posters of me floating around all over the
place. A reward for my capture, maybe. What would be worse is if
some officer up there thinks he hit you with one of those pulser
rounds and you didn’t fall down. Either they’ll think you’ve got
some sweet new tech that protects your whole body from pulsers, or
they’ll figure out you’re a primie.”

Vilaris’s face hardened. “Okay, screw the supplies.
Let’s just lock up what we can and come back for it later.”

“No arguments here.”

Chaz was still crouched in the stairwell when I
opened the door, clutching the bag he’d packed. Blaylocke was
standing on deck, stiff and unmoving, his back to us.

Chaz looked as scared as I’d ever seen him. More
scared than the day I met him, right after he’d found out I was a
murderer. “Gareth told the officers he was waiting for his
shipmates to get back with food. Said he’d keep an eye out for any
suspicious characters that came by.”

“Why are
you
hiding?” I asked.

“In case we had to run.”

“We do,” I said. “Those cops aren’t gonna give up
until they find me.”

“I know,” Chaz said. “They’re still standing right
there. They’re on the bluewave, talking to headquarters about
something.”

We listened.

The cop was talking in that smug, cavalier way
law-lovers so often do. “… airship, approximately thirty feet, lone
passenger says he has shipmates who have not returned. Refuses to
allow us to search the vessel. Asking permission to board.”

We all heard it. We exchanged looks.

“We have to go now,” I said. “The hole in the side
of the hull is our only way out from belowdecks.”

Vilaris stopped me. “What about Gareth?”

What about him?
I wanted to say. I thought
for a moment. “How many cops are there, Chaz?”

“Two.”

“Vilaris… go down and throw a big pile of coals in
the furnace. The
Clarity
is taking off… one last time. Meet
us in the control capsule.”

I can only imagine how surprised Blaylocke must’ve
been a minute or two later when the deck lurched beneath his feet.
I was busy below, opening the ballonet valves and cranking the
engines to full vertical. I hopped off my chair and grabbed my pack
as I felt the ground pull away. When Chaz and Vilaris joined me, we
hopped out through the gash and hustled off into the shadows, even
as the deck began to ring out with the sounds of the cops’
boots.

Taking cover behind a nearby airship, we waited for
Blaylocke. I figured he’d build up the gumption to disembark sooner
or later. It turned out to be sooner. When we saw him hit the
ground, we waved our hands and whispered insults at him until we
got his attention.

The last time I ever laid eyes on her,
The
Secant’s Clarity
was putting on a brave performance, making her
cumbersome rise from the floater and giving the cops a bear of a
time trying to bring her back down. She drifted backward through
the sea of ships at rest, bouncing off hulls and masts until she’d
risen high enough to clear them. I wondered how long it was going
to take those law-lovers to figure out we were using the ballonets
for hot-air lift instead of cold-air ballast. Thinking about it
still makes me laugh.

Vilaris led us to the far outskirts of the airfield.
We were so close to the aft of the floater that it felt like the
stream was going to suck me off the edge if I didn’t keep two feet
on the ground. The city lights were distant and diffused, lost in a
haze of nighttime clouds. I searched the sky for the
Clarity
, but either she’d been swept away into the gloom, or
the cops had grounded her somewhere in the airfield.

It was there, on that remote corner of Mallentis,
that we first met the
Galeskimmer
and her crew. She was a
beauty of a streamboat, slender and flat-bottomed, with a pair of
silver turbines and a single sail for riding with the wind. Nothing
close to the size or power of my
Ostelle
—she was even
shorter than
The Secant’s Clarity
—but for our purposes,
she’d serve just fine.

We had only the clothes on our back and the
belongings in our bags. It was a good thing, too, as we soon found
out. The
Galeskimmer
had only one deck and twice as many
crewmembers as the
Clarity
. Now that we were coming aboard,
she’d have triple the
Clarity
’s crew, in total.

“These are my friends,” Vilaris said when we
arrived, flushed and out of breath.

“Captain Sable Brunswick, at your service.” The
voice was strong, bolder somehow than the mouse of a woman who
owned it. She was short and thin, all pep and sparkle as she swung
down from the deck and gave us a low bow that felt excessive under
the circumstances. Her hair was tied back in a simple dirty-blond
braid beneath the plumed tricorn she removed when she greeted us.
The vest she wore was loose, and the pants that looked as though
they had once hugged her slender hips were roomy.

“
Acting
… Captain,” said the elderly fellow
who emerged after her. He was tall and sinewy, his mouth puckered
up tight beneath a snowy white beard, his clothes in need of
mending.

Sable gave the old man a look, her blue eyes as
sharp as daggers. “Allow me to introduce Landon Scofield, the
Galeskimmer
’s quartermaster and a constant thorn in my
side,” she told us. “We hear you’re in need of a lift.”

She was looking at me, so I answered. “If she’s
fast. Looks like she’s got it where it counts.”

The Captainess smirked. “Who… me, or the ship?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, lady,” I said. “There’ll be
plenty of time for me to tell you how great you are, if you can
prove it.”

“I’ve never been one for games, Mr…”

I gave Vilaris a sideways look. “Call me
Nordstrom.”

Sable wasn’t fooled. “Well Mr. Nordstrom, I don’t
like games, so let’s put it all out on the table, shall we? I think
you’d better take a look at this.”

She shoved a sheet of curled parchment toward me. I
took it from her and unrolled it. There I was, WANTED. They’d even
included my middle name. I didn’t even know I
had
a middle
name. Thanks to those law-loving parents of mine, the whole stream
knew it now.

“This is a terrible picture,” I said. “Who’d the
Civs hire to draw this, a blind monkey?”

“An imperfect likeness, maybe,” said Sable. “But
it’s you, nevertheless. Do you see the number at the bottom of the
page?”

I nodded. It was a big number.

“Times are hard, Mr. Nordstrom. My crew and I don’t
have the luxury of doing pro bono work.”

“You can pro bono whoever you want,” I said. “That’s
none of my business. All I want to know is how much you
charge.”

“We fly for whoever’s paying the most,” said Sable.
“Having seen that number there, you now know how much you’re worth
to the Civil Regency Corps. Would you care to make me an
offer?”

“That many chips, plus one,” I said.

“There will be additional expenses if we have to fly
you halfway across the stream. Then again, tying you up and waiting
for the Civvies only costs me a length of rope and a few minutes’
time. Try again, Mr. Nordstrom.”

“Give me a moment with my colleagues, here,” I said.
I turned around and we huddled up. “They’re your chips, guys. What
do you think?”

“Offer her fee-and-a-half,” Vilaris said. “The
highest I want to go is double.”

I spun on my heel. “This much, plus… half this
much,” I announced, pointing to the number on my wanted poster.

Sable considered this. “How far do you want to
go?”

“Get us to the northern fringe. Word doesn’t spread
so fast out there.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it, but… throw in another five
thousand and you’ve got yourself a deal,” said Sable. “Half
upfront, the other half on delivery.”

I waited for Vilaris to nod. “We have an agreement.”
I extended my hand, and Sable slid hers into mine. Her grip was
firm, but the bones were like twigs.

“Let me introduce you to the rest of the crew,” she
said.

The others had gathered on deck to get a look at us.
I counted them out. Seven in all, including Sable and Mr. Scofield,
the first mate. The other five were just as tattered and thin, but
hard and scrappy-looking for all that. There was the paunch-bellied
boatswain, Dennel McMurtry, graying beneath his black top-hat, with
two gold teeth and tobacco stains over the rest; half-blind rigger
Thorley Colburn, a patch-eyed hulk of a man with a hook nose and
silver rings through his ears, his clear blue eye shining through a
curtain of blond hair; Eliza Kinally, a redhead with wide hips and
sharp green eyes, stout and plain; and little Neale Glynton, the
dark-haired cabin boy of no more than twelve, bug-eyed and scrawny
as a starved cat. The fifth was a skittish little creature called a
duender, hardly taller than a child, with a broad hunchback and
pointed ears that curved out from the sides of its head like
fishing poles. It had a wide, flat nose, and teeth like mallet
heads. It was a ‘he,’ they said, and they called him Nerimund.

The crew helped us aboard and showed us to our
bunks. The ship had a surprising amount of room to spare below, and
I got the impression that their crew had once been much bigger.
They were a ragged lot, and it was clear they needed our money as
much or more than we needed their boat. I tossed my things into the
hammock little Neale had pointed out to me and climbed above to
watch us lift off. I felt no sense of safety, not even packed away
on a little ship and bound for a slower part of the stream. I
wouldn’t feel any more at ease until we’d gone airborne.