The Flux Engine (26 page)

He opened the door a crack and scanned the hall beyond.

“Follow me,” he said and stepped through.

O O O

The hallway ran along for a short distance, then turned right at the entrance to a stairway that went up and down. Without pausing, Hickok led them down to the floor below. An identical passage ran to a door, roughly beneath the one they’d used to exit the hanger.

Hickok put his hand on the latch, but Robi stopped him. Motioning for him to step aside, she placed her ear to the door. The thrumming sound of engines that was always a background noise aboard an airship was amplified in her ear, but she could hear nothing else. She wondered if that was what was preventing John from finding his crystal.

Dropping to the ground to look under the door would look suspicious if anyone appeared in the corridor, so she decided on the direct approach. Opening the door, she stepped inside as if she belonged there. If there was someone in the room, she could simply feign that she forgot something and leave. As it turned out, none of it was necessary; the room was empty. It was large and open with an enormous steel tank hanging from the ceiling in its center. A section of glass was set into the tank from bottom to top, making it easy to read the level of the glowing blue Flux inside. A dozen pipes emerged from the bottom of the tank, carrying Flux away to other parts of the airship. One of the pipes was larger by far than the others.

“That one must go to the Flux Engine,” John said.

“Why put it up here?” Hickok asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to have it right next to the engine?”

John pointed to the other pipes.

“No pumps,” he said. “They’re feeding whatever else uses Flux with gravity, so they put the main tank up here. There’s probably a backup tank in the engine room.”

“Which is down below us somewhere,” Robi surmised.

“Well, come on then,” Hickok said. “We aren’t going to find it standing here and the sooner we do, the better. Our luck’s bound to run out.”

Robi moved to the big pipe that disappeared into the floor. It went through a square opening that was much larger than the pipe itself. Down a few feet the pipe made a ninety-degree turn and joined some other pipes.

“I think I can get down there,” she said. She unzipped her boiler suit and slipped out of it.

“What are you doing?” John demanded, grabbing her arm.

She’d expected Hickok to object, not John.

“We know the pipe is going to the engine,” she said. “They build pipeways with extra room in case one of the pipes break; that way they can send someone small in to fix it. Like me.”

“What if you get stuck,” John demanded, “or lost?”

“Once we get John’s crystal back, things could go bad,” Hickok said. “This whole airship might fall right out of the sky.”

“I know,” she said, reaching up and removing John’s hand from her arm. It was cute of him to get all protective of her, but she was more than capable of taking care of herself. “You guys will have to search for the engine room,” she said. “This pipe goes straight there. I’ll probably beat you.

“Besides,” she went on. “If you guys run into trouble, I can still get the crystal.”

There was a long silence while they thought that over, then John looked at Hickok and the enforcer shrugged.

“Be careful,” John said, letting go of Robi’s hand. She hadn’t realized that she still held it and jerked away a little too quickly.

“You too,” she said, then lowered herself down the shaft and into the bowels of the airship.

O O O

To Derek Morgan it felt as if no time had passed. The actions of the bridge crew and the slow movement of the stars above had a hypnotic effect that transformed the hours into an indistinct blur. As it was, no sooner had Sira gone than she was suddenly back at his side.

“What is it?” he asked, struggling to bring his mind up to speed.

“Master, I found something,” her voice was low and urgent.

Morgan sat up straight, all trace of the torpor that had overtaken him gone. Sira looked as she had when he’d dismissed her earlier, so she hadn’t been to bed either. She looked tired and a bit disheveled, but her face beamed with intensity.

“Three of the Flux drums were empty,” she declared.

Morgan’s mind raced. The crews that loaded the barrels would have known instantly if a drum was empty, unless Solomon was trying to cheat him. Solomon was a fool, but Morgan didn’t think he was crazy.

Someone had used them to sneak aboard the
Vengeance
. Three someones, likely. And he suspected he knew all three.

“Go to the crystal chamber,” he commanded her. “Whoever they are, that’s their most likely target.”

“Shouldn’t we sound the alarm?” she asked.

Morgan shook his head.

“If we do, they’ll just find a place to hide. I want them to think they’ve succeeded. We’ll catch them unawares.”

“But we must inform the Shokhlar,” she said.

Again Morgan shook his head.

“Wake him just so he can tell us to find the invaders?” he said. “No, he needs his rest. We will deal with this.”

“Do you want any of them alive,” Sira asked, “to question?”

They were too close to success to risk interference.

“No,” he said. “Nothing must stand in the way of our triumph in the morning.”

“As you command, your Eminence,” she said, bowing, then she turned and darted off toward the bridge ladder.

Morgan rose and left the observation platform, crossing the bridge to the lift. He’d sent Sira to the most likely place, so he pressed the button of the sixth floor. The invaders wouldn’t know where the engine room was so they’d have to look for it.

Outside the first golden tones of dawn were lighting the sky.

Time to go hunting.

Chapter 28

Prey

John followed Hickok down a level to a long hallway that ran off in either direction. It looked just like all the other halls they’d seen and John checked his memory to make sure they hadn’t been on this level before.

“Should we split up?” John asked.

“No,” Hickok said, pointing off to the left. “We’ll start down there. Tell me if you hear your crystal.”

Hickok moved off down the hall. John took a deep breath and followed. Several doors lined the corridor but none were labeled. The first turned out to be a fire closet, packed with buckets of sand and a small pressurized water tank with a short length of hose. The next was a lavatory and the third a small room with several rows of bunks. As Hickok opened the door, someone looked up sleepily from the nearest bunk.

“Sorry,” he said, quickly shutting the door.

Hickok had John listen at them before opening them after that. Not that it helped much. This close to his mother’s crystal, he should be able to hear it. When it had over-driven the Tommys in Sprocketville it rang out like an enormous bell. Aboard the gigantic airship he couldn’t hear it.

A cold shiver went down his spine despite the uncomfortable heat of the boiler suit.

Ever since he’d taken the Paragon Elixir he hadn’t heard any sounds of crystals. Hickok said the elixir would change him; maybe it took away whatever made him … different. To be fair, he couldn’t be sure he’d ever been near enough to a crystal to hear it since he recovered from whatever Solomon did to him.

Still, his crystal was on this ship, being used to lift it, to power its volcano weapon, and he couldn’t hear it.

What if Hickok saved his life at the cost of finding his mother? He’d never find her without the song of her crystal.

“’Scuse me,” a voice said and someone pushed by them in the narrow hall. John’s eyes darted to the figure now receding down the hall. It was a man in a soldier’s uniform with a rifle slung over his back. He looked tired and worn and he didn’t look back before passing through a door at the end of the corridor.

John breathed a sigh of relief and forced his body to relax. Just then a firm hand dropped onto his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Hickok whispered as John tried to force his heart back down out of his throat. “Stick close.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I got distracted.”

Hickok looked him square in the eye with his penetrating gaze.

“You all right?”

John nodded, careful to keep his expression blank. Whatever he’d gained or lost, he wasn’t ready to share it. He wished Robi was there. He always felt comfortable talking to her.

“Let’s try the next level down,” Hickok was saying.

“How many levels are there?”

“Six or seven,” Hickok said with a shrug.

They continued down to the next level. As they stepped off the stairs onto the landing, Hickok nudged him and pointed to a brass plaque on the wall with the number six stamped on it.

Wordlessly, they moved off along the corridor. A line of men in boiler suits emerged from a door on the left side of the hall. They were dirty and soot-stained with tired, sweaty faces and weary, down-turned eyes. When the door was open, John could hear the noise of machinery and the rhythmic chug-chug of steam engines. This had to be it.

As the boiler-suited men passed by him, one looked up, seemingly startled by the appearance of two men in clean coveralls.

“Hey,” he said, recoiling in shock. “Who are you?”

Hickok didn’t bother to make up an answer. His fist lashed out and slammed the man square in the jaw. There was a moment of stunned silence while the boiler-suited man slumped to the floor, then chaos erupted. These men might be tired from a long day of work, but they weren’t the kind of men to back down from a fight. They rushed Hickok all at once, trying to bear him to the deck with the crush of numbers. The enforcer slammed his elbow into one man’s face while twisting his torso and sending another sprawling farther down the corridor.

Seeing that they were outclassed, the men broke and ran.

“I’ll take care of them,” Hickok said, racing after the fleeing men. “Find the crystal.”

With that, they were gone.

Heart pounding, John ran to the door the men had emerged from. It was larger and heavier-looking than the ones on the upper decks. Based on how much the engine noise had quieted once it shut, John guessed it was lined with cork to keep the sound in. A plaque mounted on the door read, Engine Room 2.

Taking a quick look around the hall to make sure he was alone, John reached for the door.

Then he froze.

Across the hall was a second door, also with a brass plate. This time the plate read, Crystal Chamber. He glanced back down the hall where Hickok had gone, but knew the enforcer wouldn’t be back for several minutes. Taking a breath to calm himself, John crossed the hall and opened the door.

O O O

The pipe burned Robi’s hand and she swore, jerking it back. Following the big flux pipe had seemed like such a good idea at first, but now she was lost, just as John had predicted.

Damn him.

Of course he hadn’t specifically predicted she would get lost, but Robi was enjoying being mad at John instead of herself so she ignored the facts. About twenty yards down the pipeway, the big pipe had suddenly turned and disappeared through a wall for no reason she could determine. Worse, at least one of the pipes she was crawling over was a steam pipe. She tried going down a level to get away from the blasted hot pipes but they reappeared almost immediately, forcing her to crawl slowly and carefully to avoid getting burned.

Sweat ran in her eyes and the air was thick with moisture. She felt a little bit like she was being cooked.

A rush of cool air suddenly hit her face and she caught sight of an opening in the pipeway. It looked as if the pipes ran along the ceiling of a large room just up ahead. She quickened her pace as much as she dared. Once out over the open room, she could just drop down and continue her search on foot, away from the twice-cursed pipes.

She wouldn’t be sneaking like the daughter of the world’s greatest thief, but she wouldn’t die of heat stroke either. Sometimes practicality had to get the better of pride.

As she passed out of the pipeway a rush of cool air washed over her, raising gooseflesh on her neck and arms. In that moment she doubted anything had ever felt as good. She closed her eyes and reveled in the sensation, taking several deep, revitalizing breaths. After a moment, she opened her eyes and almost cried. There, at the far side of the open space, she could see the big Flux pipe emerging into the pipeway again.

“Thank the Builder,” she gasped under her breath.

Before she could continue her silent crawl, however, someone answered her.

“I’m surprised to see you here.”

The sweat running down Robi’s arms and back turned to ice. She knew that voice.

“I was told you’d been dealt with,” Derek Morgan went on.

Robi looked down, over the side of the suspended pipes. Derek Morgan stood in the doorway of what appeared to be a storage area.

She gathered herself, muscles tightening like the coils of a clock-spring. If she could cross the pipes quickly enough, she might escape. There was no way he could follow her through the pipeways. Of course, he could always shoot her while she crossed the pipes.

But Derek Morgan was not looking at her.

“It’s good to see you,” Hickok’s voice floated up to her.

She twisted around, looking back along the far wall of the room. Wild Bill Hickok tugged at his duster, the boiler suit discarded atop a pile of bodies at his feet. At this distance, Robi couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. Hickok reached across his body and drew his short enforcer’s sword. Robi wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been watching intently, but Hickok winced when he drew the weapon. She remembered his healing ribs and wondered just how fast a Paragon healed.

“I’ve been wanting a rematch,” Morgan said, but he didn’t draw his blade. Instead, his hand dropped to his gun. He drew and fired so fast, Robi wondered if Morgan used some new kind of machine gun pistol. Hickok reeled, spinning his body behind the standing crates. Bullets tore into the wood, but Robi was sure the first couple had actually hit Hickok. Morgan’s gun clicked empty and he dropped it back in its holster.

“You’re looking a bit slow, old man,” he said, drawing his blade at last.

“I remember you running away last time,” Hickok said, emerging from the cover of the boxes. “Nowhere to run in here, I expect.”

As Robi watched, transfixed, the combatants closed on each other. She had a momentary thought of dropping down on Morgan, but as the two titans came together, she put that thought out of her mind. Almost too fast for her to follow, their blades whipped out, ringing off one another again and again. Hickok scored first, slashing through Morgan’s defense and cutting a shallow gash across his chest. Morgan answered with two quick blows that left Hickok bleeding from his left arm. If she tried to interfere they’d cut her to ribbons before she hit the floor.

The fight went on with each man attacking, then retreating, then attacking again. In less than a minute they were both panting and bloody, bleeding from many small wounds. Hickok seemed to be holding his own, but Robi had seen him move faster and more aggressively in the past. His ribs were slowing him down.

Morgan had seen it too.

“What’s the matter, old man?” he asked. “Feeling your age?”

Hickok didn’t favor that with a response but attacked again, driving Morgan back.

It happened so fast that Robi almost didn’t see it. As Hickok slashed at Morgan, his blade went wide by an inch or two. It was all the advantage Morgan needed; he swept Hickok’s blade aside and ran his own through Hickok’s side. The enforcer cried out in pain and went down, clutching his wound.

“Now,” Morgan said, kicking Hickok’s sword away. “Before I have you dragged off to the brig to bleed to death, I want to know where your two friends are.”

The words shocked Robi back to herself. She had no gun and no illusions about her chances against Morgan in a fair fight. She had to get to the Flux Engine and pull out John’s crystal before Morgan figured out why they were here. With any luck John would already be there, but if he wasn’t, she’d just have to figure something out herself.

Maybe, if she hurried, there’d be time to get Hickok out of the brig before the ship went down.

Turning away from the scene below, Robi hurried across the pipes and back into the pipeway on the far side, unseen.

O O O

The crystal chamber was big and every bit of it was occupied. A small steam engine chugged away on one side of the room, providing power for the Flux Engine, but the rest of the chamber was taken by the engine itself. It hung in the center of a massive framework of girders, beams, support arms, and Flux tubes. A glittering chandelier of crystals all moving, whirling, and gyrating as their various gears and arms propelled them.

It was a symphony of sight that nearly overwhelmed him.

Then he heard it.

He closed his eyes and slumped in relief against the door as it broke over him, the music of a thousand crystals all vibrating in harmony. Of course, standing this close, the noise should have been deafening, but John heard it as if from a great distance away, muted and soft. Whatever else the Paragon elixir had done to him, it had almost completely wiped out his crystal sense.

“Are you the help?” a voice said from quite close.

John jumped and opened his eyes. Standing in front of him was a small man with thick, dirty spectacles and a sour expression.

“Are you deaf, boy,” he demanded, “or are you just in awe of the greatest mechanic in the world?”

“Yes, sir. I am,” John said, finding his voice at last. “Uh … the help, I mean.”

“’Bout time they sent me someone,” the man said. “Call me Bertram and get yourself over here.”

John followed Bertram over to a second steam engine that stood farther down than the one driving the Flux Engine. Each of the steam engines was connected to the main drive shaft by a clutch mechanism of some kind, presumably to transfer power if one engine should fail. Normally if an airship’s lift engine lost power, it would drift down gradually as its float crystals lost power. This airship, however, depended on his mother’s crystal to make its float crystals lift more than they otherwise could. If it lost power, if the boost effect ended suddenly, it would overwhelm the lifters. The giant airship would fall out of the sky like a stone.

As they rounded the first steam engine, John immediately saw what the problem was. The second engine wasn’t working. Bertram had its drive piston torn apart and was attempting to fit it with new rings.

“I need you to pry up the shaft while I get the rings on,” Bertram said. “Use the prybar on the table.”

A small workbench on wheels stood nearby and John immediately spotted the yard-long iron bar. He picked it up, considering its heft, then walked over to where Bertram was kneeling over the piston. Without a second thought, John held the crowbar in his hand and punched the little man in the back of the head. Bertram went down like a head-shot hog and lay still.

“Sorry Bertram,” John said. “You aren’t going to need that other engine anyway.”

He tossed the prybar onto the deck with a clang and turned to the whirling array of crystals. The machine was incredibly complex with crystals of all shapes and sizes, all moving within the engine’s field, interacting with each other, merging their harmonies into one massive chorus of sound. Even with his crystal sense diminished by the Paragon Elixir, John could feel the power radiating from the Flux Engine. As he moved closer, the hairs on his arms stood up and the pressure of the muted sound made his ears pop.

At first the whirling arms and turning spindles that drove the crystals were too much to process. It just seemed to be one massive, undulating, churning mass. Worse, his mother’s crystal was in there somewhere. If he concentrated hard, he thought he might be able to hear its individual song underlying the cacophonous melody of the Flux Engine.