Free-Wrench, no. 1 (7 page)

“Are you? With what exactly?” he asked,
tapping a gauge before muttering to himself, “Lousy thing’s busted
again.”

“With whatever you need me to do, I suppose,”
Nita said. “He wasn’t very explicit. He told me I would be working
with you, and that he would be back to take the wheel soon.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. This bucket
handles like a plow,” he said. He pulled hard at one of the levers,
conjuring a worrisome grind from one of the fans overhead. “I
swear, I don’t know how he gets it to do his bidding.”

“I do it by treating her like a lady,
Gunner,” the captain said. He was stepping up from below decks, the
freshly lit cigar clenched firmly in his teeth and streaming ash in
the stiff breeze. “That means you need to treat her with care and
finesse. Keep that in mind when you’re showing Ms. Graus the ropes.
And make sure she meets the whole crew.”

“Aye, Captain,” Gunner said, with a crisp
salute. He stepped aside and turned to Nita. “Now, you’re to be my
assistant, are you?”

“I suppose.”

“Well then, per the captain’s orders, I’ll
give you the bare-bones rundown. No sense doing more than that
right now. You’re a Calderan I see. Am I correct in assuming you’ve
never served on an airship before?”

“This is the first such ship I’ve ever set
foot on.”

“That’s just lovely. Very well, we start at
the beginning then.” He released a frustrated huff. “This big sack
over our heads is called the envelope. When we’re firing on
enemies, we aim for theirs and try to keep them from hitting ours.
There are a few different sections in there, so we can stand a few
holes without falling out of the sky, but not many. We stay up by
keeping it filled with a concoction called phlogiston, which has
got a great deal more lift than it has any right to. We go up and
down by pumping phlogiston in and out of holding tanks with pumps
there, and there.” He indicated two deceivingly small mechanisms
attached to the bottom side of the sack above them. “We’re standing
on the gondola, specifically the helm deck. Down those stairs is
the primary deck, and there are three lower decks. We’ll tour them
shortly. The front of the ship is the fore end and we call it the
bow; the back is the aft end and we call it the stern. Left is
port, right is starboard. The deck numbers increase as you go down,
with the primary deck as deck one. There, that’s enough to get
around, anyway. Am I going too fast for you?”

“I’m following so far.”

“Good. If there’s one thing we don’t have use
for, it’s a slow learner. Now, introductions. My name is Guy von
Cleef. The crew calls me Gunner for obvious reasons, and you may as
well do so. You’ve met the captain already. Have you met Lil?”

“Yes.”

“And Coop?”

“Yes.”

“And Butch?”

“I haven’t met him.”

“Her, actually. Come along.”

He walked briskly toward the stern of the
ship, setting a pace that Nita found difficult to match without
stumbling like a drunkard. All along the way he pointed his fingers
and dictated terminology. Familiar mechanisms like pneumatic
manifolds and pressure lines joined new terms like bottlescrews and
ballast pumps. Nita tucked the information away, keeping track of a
growing list of questions while focusing as best she could on
walking without falling down and keeping what was left of her last
meal where it should be. They walked nearly the length of the
primary deck until they reached a hatch with a narrow ladder
leading to the lower decks.

On what he indicated was deck two, they found
the nearest thing to an open space she’d seen so far. It was a room
with four picnic-style benches bolted to the floor. Each could, if
pressed, seat three people on a side, and one had a cushion and
white linen covering applied to the top, both of which had faded
stains the color of rust. At the far end of the room was a half
wall revealing a small kitchen stuffed to capacity. Its walls were
hung with well-secured cutlery, their blades gleaming in the glow
of the cooking fire. The air was muggy with steam and heavy with
spice. A woman stood hunched over the far counter, but the steam
and low light made it difficult to see any detail.

Gunner slipped the goggles from his face.
“This is our galley and sickbay. Butch! I’ve got the latest
newcomer. Mack wants her introduced around, as usual.”

The immediate result was a torrent of foreign
words spewed forth with an agitation and bitterness that
transcended language. Butch turned around, clattering spoons and
slamming lids on pots, and marched through the gate in the half
wall without so much as a breath interrupting her incomprehensible
tirade. She was sixty years old at least, and her voice was a
coarse shriek that sounded at least twenty years older than that.
She was heavy, with bulldog jowls and deep lines on her face, and
dressed entirely in white, from the kerchief that held back her
white hair to the simple white shoes on her feet. Covering her
white dress was a lightly stained smock.

Her angry rant came to an end as suddenly as
it started, and she stared expectantly at Nita.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand,” Nita
said.

“She wants to know your name. She also said a
great deal of very colorful words about people who interrupt her
cooking, but it wasn’t really relevant to the subject at hand, and
I’d rather get through this quickly,” Gunner explained.

“I’m Amanita Graus.”

“Glinda West,” said the woman, followed by
what Nita hoped was a foreign pleasantry of some kind.

“West? Are you the captain’s sister?”

“Ex-wife,” Gunner said.

“Oh. Pleased to meet you,” Nita said, holding
out her hand.

Again there was a brief rant with a greater
than usual amount of hand waving.

“Butch has a strict clean-hand policy. No
handshakes.”

“Oh, very well,” she said, offering a curtsy,
or as near as she could offer without wearing an actual dress.

Butch seemed mollified and offered a short
statement that was, for once, not screeched like a harpy.

“She’s sorry to hear about your mother, and
she hopes we can finally pry some real medicine out of the fug
folk.”

“Thank you for your kindness.”

The woman nodded once and turned, walking
back to the kitchen.

“Butch is our cook and medic, so if you stick
around it’ll, pay to be on her good side,” Gunner said quietly as
they left. “If you happen to figure out how to manage that, be sure
to let the rest of us know.”

“What’s that language she’s speaking? I don’t
recognize it.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. You’ll
learn to understand her though, if you make it as a
crewmember.”

“Why do you call her Butch?”

“That’s not really relevant to the orders I
was given.” He progressed down the hall, pointing out rooms as he
went. “These are strong rooms, filled with the goods we sell and
the goods we get in return,” he said. “They are locked tight, and
only the captain has the key.”

“If this is where you store the goods, what
do you keep in the cargo hold?”

“If we could afford an airship with a proper
cargo hold, we’d scarcely need to risk our necks with a monthly
trip to Caldera.
Wind Breaker
was built as a coastal patrol
ship. We converted the additional crew quarters for provisions,
goods, and fuel. We also managed to scrape together some better
turbines, a bigger boiler… I suppose it is easier just to list the
things we
didn’t
modify. That would be… well, I suppose the
primary deck and the armaments. This ship has a pretty good set of
teeth. Two sets of fore cannons, one set of aft. We try not to fire
the aft cannon. It tends to knock the galley around a bit.” He
indicated the final pair of rooms on the floor. “These rooms are
the only remaining crew quarters. This one belongs to the Cooper
siblings. This one is shared by myself and Butch. There is no
spare, so you’ll either be stringing up a hammock with the Coopers
or staking out a spot elsewhere.”

“Yours and Butch’s room is off limits?”

“No more so than the Coopers’ or anywhere
else on this ship. To be frank, I don’t want to waste my time
moving my stuff to make room for a greenhorn who’s just as likely
to not last more than a day with us.”

“Don’t write me off so soon. I’m sure I can
be an asset.”

“Yeah, so did the rest of them.”

“And that happened to them?”

“They didn’t cut it. It’s that simple. So
you’ll excuse me if I don’t feel inclined to move my collection for
someone who won’t be with us for very long.”

“Collection of what?”

He pushed open the curtain. One half of the
room was tidy and included a neat hammock hanging with a sheet and
comforter arranged on top in what must have been the nearest
equivalent to a made bed as one was likely to find on a ship. The
other side was like an armory, or perhaps a museum of the history
of warfare. It had almost as much gleaming cutlery secured to the
walls as the kitchen. Swords, daggers, and knives were joined by
flintlock pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, a multibarreled
contraption with a crank on the side, and some sort of tube that
she would have guessed was a musical instrument if not for the
company it kept.

“Assorted firearms, bladed weapons, and
bludgeons. Some precataclysm antiques, some original creations, all
fully restored and functional.”

Nita watched as a particularly strong shift
of the ship jostled the wall-mounted portion of the collection,
much of which was directly over his hammock.

“Aren’t you afraid something might fall on
you?”

“It only happened once, and the scar is
barely noticeable. I still contend that Coop was playing with my
cutlass and didn’t return it to its mounting properly.” He cut
himself off, shaking his head and chastising himself under his
breath. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Waste of time. Onward to deck
three, which is more or less our utility deck.”

He led the way to another ladder and brought
Nita to deck three. By virtue of the shape of the ship, this deck
was somewhat shorter than the one above. It was primarily an
I-shaped hallway running past six rooms, three on each side, and
two larger rooms at the far ends.

“The fore and aft rooms hide the workings of
the cannons. The ammo hoists and such. If you’re to be my
assistant, you’ll spend much time in there, so no need to open
those doors for now.”

“If you don’t mind, I would love to get a
look at them. I’ve always been fascinated with machinery.”

“I was asked to show you around and introduce
you. I prefer to get my orders out of the way as quickly as
possible, so I can return to more worthwhile diversions, if
you
don’t mind.”

Nita eyed Gunner. Lil and Coop were kind
enough at first blush to make her wonder if she’d been misinformed
about the overall attitude of outsiders. Gunner seemed determined
to even the balance.

“The primary powder magazine is up this way,
just ahead. The secondary powder magazine is back that way. Over
here is the boiler room, water tanks, and immediate fuel supply. No
need to take you downstairs. Just the gig hoist and the fuel,
water, and gas storage. Oh, actually, you’ll find the head there as
well, when nature calls. With that, I believe that fulfills my
orders. All introductions, and a quick tour.”

“One moment… Lil, Coop, Captain Mack, Butch,
and you. That’s five crewmembers. Where is the sixth?”

“Sixth? We don’t… oh, Captain Mack was
counting our inspector. Since he wasn’t in the galley or with the
captain, he’ll probably be in the boiler room.”

He took a few strides down the hallway and
pulled open one of the few solidly shut doors in the ship to reveal
baking heat and a sooty atmosphere that was almost like a taste of
home for Nita. She found herself strangely excited to finally see
something the she was confident she would know inside and out.
After all, a boiler is a simple mechanism. Surely one design could
only differ so much from another. This one would be smaller than
the boilers back at the steamworks, but all of the components would
be the same. When she got a glimpse of the thing, she realized how
very mistaken she was. The scale was the least of the changes. This
contraption bore little or no resemblance to any such device she’d
seen, even the wood-fired ones she’d seen in ships. It almost
looked inside out. There was a firebox, steam and water pipes, and
a chimney. All parts she’d expected to see, but joining them was a
bird’s nest of tubes both large and small, twisting over themselves
in a brass, copper, and cast-iron nightmare.

“
This
is your
boiler
?” she
asked, waving off a particularly strong whiff of the odd-smelling
fumes that hissed from the firebox door.

“Of course. Technically this is also my
responsibility, but it isn’t as though there’s much to do.”

“Not much to do?”

“Just shovel some fuel into it now and then,
refill the water tanks, blow out the brine, and swap out the bits
that wear out. And we’d better hope there’s not much of that,
because we’re down to just the one spare.”

“I’ve been working as a free-wrench in the
largest steamworks in Caldera for years, and I haven’t come close
to mastering the different trades. Boilers need constant upkeep and
inspection. I assumed that’s why your inspector would be in here.
Where is he, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s probably up in the dark corner over
there. He likes it warm,” Gunner said. He leaned down and tapped
the floor. “Come on out, Wink. There’s another one.”

Nita raised an eyebrow, then took a step back
when
something
stirred in the darkness. When it revealed
itself, slinking into the glow of the fire, getting a good look did
little to clarify what it was. It was a creature with wiry, ghostly
gray fur. At a glance she might have thought it was a cat based on
the size, but the illusion didn’t last long. The ears and nose were
batlike, and as it moved toward them it demonstrated the
awkwardness of something more at home in the trees than on land. A
few short hops brought it to their feet, where it flicked its long,
fuzzy tail and looked at them with a perfectly round red eye. The
other eye was hidden beneath a cloth sash tied about the creature’s
head. It turned to Nita and crouched down, drumming its spidery
fingers without taking its eye off her. Nita took a step back, not
sure what to make of it, but quite sure she didn’t want to be
touched by it.