Pirate Sun (23 page)

She stood up, but too late as she heard sliding sounds and footsteps from behind the two chairs. Three men wearing the uniform of the Slipstream police emerged from the clutter and shadow of the workshop. Two held drawn swords, one a pistol.

“Politics makes strange bedfellows,” said Shambles as he straightened up. He sighed heavily. “Antaea, as a member of the home guard you were completely safe discussing any of your normal business with me tonight. The last thing I expected was for you to tread into the one subject area that might be of interest to my…minders, here.”

Antaea eyed the three men. “But why?”

“I’m acting as a go-between,” said Shambles with a shrug. “A point of contact between the government and the rebellious commoners in the city. I was relaying the terms of a prisoner swap when you arrived.”

She glared at him. “Then why did you even let me in?”

He sighed again. “Because it was
you,
Antaea. Because I believed you were above such things as local politics.”

“I am. This concerns the safety of Virga itself, Martin.”

“Oh, Virga is safe now, ma’am,” said one of the soldiers with a sarcastic tone. “You see, we know where Fanning is, too.

“He’s been captured. Right about now he should be on his way to visit the pilot.”

THEY MARCHED ANTAEA
several blocks through dark narrow alleys, to a covered shed hulking between several buildings. One man had run ahead and after a few minutes she heard the unmistakable—but curiously muffled—whine of a bike’s jet engine. “The pilot will want to talk to you,” said the man who had his gun trained on her back. “Even if we’ve already got the admiral.”

Antaea kept her feet fixed on the ground. She deserved worse treatment than they were giving her. The home guard had the same status as noblemen in most Meridian nations—the only problem was that some of these soldiers had never heard of the guard, or thought it was a myth. Their talking and pointing didn’t matter to her at this point; everything had come crashing down around her. She only hoped that Chaison’s capture had also resulted in Gonlin’s people being rounded up. If she was really lucky, the monster that had taken her sister’s form had been destroyed.

They entered the low shed, which turned out to be a hangar. There were clamshell doors of various sizes in the ground, with bikes hanging over two of them, and a twin-engine boat suspended above the biggest set. A gangplank had been thrown down from this and warm light washed out of the cabin to catch rainbow highlights on the oil-soaked ground. Two soldiers stood at attention over a man who sat on the gangplank. He was tall and lean with handsome features and a boyish mop of black hair. Although he was clearly a prisoner he wore the dress uniform of an officer of the Slipstream navy. He glanced up as she approached, his face far too despondent for someone who was about to be set free.

No one objected when Antaea sat down next to him. “Antaea,” she said, offering her hand. He shook it somberly.

“Travis,” he said. “Is it true about the admiral?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably.”

He looked into the distance for a moment. Then: “You’re not the one I’m being swapped for, are you?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “Just a passenger.”

They sat in silence for a while, mirroring one another’s postures of listless defeat. Then he murmured, seemingly to no one in particular, “They didn’t torture me, exactly. Not in a way that would leave scars. I’m still a high-ranking officer in the navy, after all, and my status was…delicate. But they asked questions in a very particular way…And they threatened everyone I knew—my family. I told them nothing.

“But I suppose all that bravery doesn’t matter now, does it?”

A soldier ran up the alley, shouting, “They’re ready!” Travis eased to his feet and smiled down at her. “I hope your stay at the palace is brief,” he said with a sad smile.

“I suspect it will be,” she said as they led him away. Antaea sat there in the renewed silence thinking about what was going on around her. Things were in motion, no doubt. At least she knew that Gonlin’s questioning hadn’t killed Chaison. That would be up to the pilot, now.

Sunk in these miserable thoughts, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until a familiar voice said, “I don’t believe it!”

She looked up. Antonin Kestrel stood over her, ringed by soldiers. He was rubbing his right wrist with his left hand. In his right hand he held a bulging file folder.

“Kestrel. You look none the worse for wear,” she said tonelessly. He said nothing, and she glanced up again. He did look distressed, in fact. It seemed he was deciding what to say to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, suddenly fearful that Chaison was dead and Kestrel had already heard.

“Come,” he said and without looking back he stalked into the boat. One of the soldiers offered her his hand. Now that he was free, Kestrel was clearly in command here.

“So the admiralty traded you for that Travis fellow?” she said as they strapped themselves into seats on opposite sides of the tiny cabin. Kestrel grunted. Annoyed at his silence, she decided to needle him. “And was it a fair trade?” Only two of the soldiers were able to squeeze in next to them; the rest were clambering into the rumble seats on the outside of the boat.

“Me for Chaison Fanning’s best staff officer?” Kestrel pursed his lips. “I’d say our two sides come out about even.”

“And how did you come to be in the care of the admiralty?”

He ignored her, clapping the pilot on the shoulder. “Get us going. I have to see Himself immediately.”

The pilot reached up and yanked on the release lever. The clamshell doors in the ground banged open and the winch holding the boat aloft let go. Instantly they were falling free in the night airs of Virga, surrounded by swirling city lights. The boat’s jets thrummed into life and they shot away from quartet three, cylinder two.

The noise of the jets reverberated through the cabin. Kestrel nodded, suddenly losing his unfocused look. He leaned forward, gesturing for Antaea to do the same.

“I need to talk to you,” he said in her ear. She reared back in surprise. When he just grimaced and waited, she brought her head close to his again.

Kestrel pitched his voice to a level that would be inaudible to the soldiers. “As I’m sure you’ve figured out, your friends Richard and Darius found the admiralty rebels pretty quickly once we got to the city,” he said. “They were frantic when they found out you’d taken Chaison. At first I thought it was an act, but…” he shook his head. “The boy’s no player, though he fancies himself clever. They really didn’t trust you, and I thought that was odd if you’d been the one who originally rescued them.”

Antaea was puzzled. Why was he telling her this?

She thought about what he’d just said. “Darius and Richard weren’t expecting to be rescued,” she said. “Neither was Chaison.” He nodded, but clearly he expected something more from her. Then she got it. “No!” she said. “I was never working for the admiralty rebels. I really am home guard. I broke him out for my own reasons.”

Except, of course, that Antaea had
not
broken Chaison out of jail. Somebody else had done that and she didn’t know who. She had been circling in frustration, unable to come up with a plan to extract him, when he conveniently fell into her lap. She hadn’t had time to wonder who it was who’d actually freed him, and it was to her advantage to have him think it was her.

Now she wondered if it hadn’t been the admiralty who’d broken up the jail. She could tell Kestrel this—but he was nodding already, as if what she’d told him confirmed his suspicions about something. Certainly, whatever he was thinking, he didn’t look happy.

Tired of speculating, she said, “What’s this all about?”

He opened the file folder. Several black-and-white photos floated out. Antaea took one and examined it in the leaning city light.

It was mostly a blur of oversaturated white and complete black, but she saw a gray oval that might be a ship, and a scattering of little dots across what looked like a cloudscape. She didn’t say anything, just flipped the photo around and shot Kestrel an inquisitive look.

“The admiralty gave me these to take to the pilot,” he said. “They’re on the
Severance
’s paper and while I would like to doubt their authenticity…Some of the details…” He saw that she still didn’t understand and said, “These are photos taken by the
Severance
’s combat recorder. They’re low quality because they were taken in cloud and by flare-light. They’re from the battle against Falcon’s fleet.”

She nodded her comprehension, and he rummaged through the folder. “The admiralty wants me to tell the pilot that they’ll print up news sheets with some of these images on them unless he backs down. Images like…this one.” He turned the little square to catch the light.

Antaea gasped. It was a hellish scene of hundreds of men falling. Those at the edges of the picture were just blurs, but those toward the center were clear: arms and legs thrown every which way, some wearing wings or fins but most grabbing at heavy kits and rifles. The air around them was dotted with helmets, canteens, shoes, and unidentifiable bits of debris.

Kestrel leaned in again. “Chaison said…” She looked up from the photo. Kestrel’s face was contorted with emotion. “Chaison said that the troop carriers were packed with men. That Falcon wasn’t just on maneuvers. Was he…?”

“Was he telling the truth?” She handed the picture back. “Kestrel, I can’t tell you for sure. I wasn’t there. I can tell you that he knew nothing about the
Severance
or the crisis at the admiralty until you told him.”

Kestrel took a deep breath. He slipped the photos into the folder and sat back. When he said nothing Antaea leaned across. “What are you going to do?”

He shook his head.

Antaea sat back, frowning. For the rest of the ride she and Kestrel avoided one another’s eyes.

“
THAT IT SHOULD
come to this,” muttered Martin Shambles as he padded down the hallway to his workshop. “Working for the enemy…giving up friends…”

Outside in the alley next to his shop, officers of the palace guard were doing the prisoner swap that Shambles had negotiated. He’d given them Antaea Argyre to take to the pilot, and the fact was bitter in his throat. Right at the moment Martin didn’t want to look on any of the faces waiting out there.

Besides, he had very little time and much to do. He swept his writing desk clear, scattering papers and pens on the floor carelessly. Then he sat down and drafted three notes.

The first said,
Tell him things are coming to a head. Move up plans for spectacular demonstration. Tomorrow, or next day. Don’t wait for good weather.

He folded this letter and, kneeling, pried up a loose floorboard. Underneath was a small space containing several brass tubes with capped ends and a section of bright metal pipe that led off somewhere under the house. He uncapped one of the tubes and put the note in it, then slid back a sheath around the pipe. There was a hissing noise as he consigned the message to a secret pneumatic tube the Aerie insurgency had installed the year before.

He had no idea where the other end of that pipe was, but was fairly sure the pilot’s people didn’t know about it. They thought he had ties to the underworld, which was true enough and was probably the reason they had left him alone all these years: they’d waited for a day like this when they might need his help. Wise, but stupid, since they hadn’t bothered to learn about his true allegiance.

His contacts would have the message within hours. Then, events would be set in motion that might tear Slipstream apart—or strengthen it and destroy all of Martin Shambles’s careful work, if he had the timing wrong.

That dire prospect made this second message all the more important. He sat down to draft it not just because he felt guilty over having deceived lovely young Antaea Argyre. He’d fed her to the sharks quite unintentionally, but fed her he had. There was more at stake here than her. It was the status of Chaison Fanning that would likely tip the scales one way or the other, not only in the conflict between the pilot and his unruly navy, but between Slipstream and its conquered vassal state, Aerie.

Martin had once believed Fanning responsible for the destruction of Aerie’s secret new sun. He’d hated the man as an enemy of reason as well as the people. Only recently had he learned that Fanning had not participated in that crime. Hayden Griffin had told him a very different story about the admiral, and if it was true then Fanning might be one of the few Slipstreamers in high office who might be willing to help Aerie achieve its independence.

Still, Martin’s pen hesitated over the paper. He didn’t even know who he was writing to, exactly. The pilot would have Fanning soon, and the admiralty rebels would quickly learn about his capture; Martin would make sure of that. The Aerie insurgency knew, in the person of Shambles himself.

Yet there was a fourth faction in the city. Martin privately called them
the bankers
—shadowy people, some clearly immigrants whose strange accent and shy nature had turned heads up and down Rush. They were incredibly closed-mouthed, forming tight little communities inside apartment blocks up and down the city’s town-wheels. They had odd skills—or no skills—but all answered to some central power they wouldn’t discuss. The pilot’s police had been utterly unable to crack their circle of silence, or to convict any of them of any crime. Shambles knew, though, that they were the source of the mysterious new currency that was flooding the streets.

To whom it may concern,
he wrote.
By the time you receive this note, it is likely that Chaison Fanning will have arrived in chains at the pilot’s palace. This information has been confirmed both by palace troops and one Antaea Argyre, a member of the home guard. The pilot and admiralty may or may not choose to make Fanning’s capture public at this time, so I urge you to contact your people in the palace immediately to verify what I’m telling you.

He didn’t actually know that the bankers had people in the palace—but Martin was aware that his was not the only secret organization operating in the city. Even before the
Severance
incident he’d been aware that there was another group, though he didn’t know who it worked for, apart from knowing that it wasn’t for the government. Recently he had decided that it and the bankers were the same entity. Martin had ears to the palace walls; why shouldn’t this other group?

One thing he did know for certain: it was the bankers who were spreading the rumor that Chaison Fanning was returning to Slipstream.
He would return,
the rumor said,
and he would set everything right again.
The news was messianic, and it often came along with whispered instructions and little slips of paper—the rights currency—that left those who received them strangely empowered.

The bankers didn’t work for the aristocracy, or the military. If there was any faction in Slipstream that cared about the common people, it would be them.

It was time for the common people to take these matters into their hands.

He was tempted to sign the note “A friend” but now was not the time to be coy.