The Wind Merchant (17 page)

Ras’ one memory of flying through the main pass leaving The Bowl had frightened him as a small boy, but at least he had had the reassurance of his father being at the helm. The wind tunnel effect jostled the ship, but back then he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would never crash as long as his dad had the wheel firmly in his capable hands.

Having cliffs on either side of him once again drew Ras’ mind unwillingly to Framer’s, but he was determined not to let another
Fox
fall prey to further scrapes if he could help it. If the main pass to The Bowl was wide enough to let a dreadnaught like
The Dauntless
through, he could literally fly in circles and be fine.

Callie stood next to Ras, gripping the railing near the helm tightly, laughing nervously with every bobble. “So, what’s the number one rule of being on an airship?”

“You want rules?” Ras asked.

“I want to make sure I know what I’m doing,” she said. “I just figured there was a list of rules for wind merchants.”

“Let’s go with ‘don’t fall off,’” Ras said.

“Good rule.” A current rocked the ship quickly to port and Callie wrapped her elbow around the railing for extra support. “Let’s follow that one.”

“The second rule of being a wind merchant is when you see sky pirates, you run,” Ras said. He spun the wheel to starboard, correcting their altered course. “More often than not they’re interested in the ship instead of a ransom.” He looked over to see Callie’s eyes fixed on the grand horizon unfurling before them as the cliffs gave way to the end of the pass.

“Sky pirates, bad. Got it,” she said absentmindedly as the last of the turbulence subsided. She released the railing, taking in the vista. “This is magnificent,” she said, raising a hand to her mouth.

Looking at the clouds with Callie present made Ras feel like he was seeing the world anew. Her excitement passed to him, almost overcoming his nervousness about spending the foreseeable future with her. “It’s a big world out here,” he said, looking back to the opening of The Bowl. The last vestiges of home fell away, and he knew he couldn’t face himself if he saw those cliffs again without a full tank of Hal’s air. He pushed the throttle forward, flexing Old Harley’s engines on the open sky. They responded sluggishly, but reached a top speed higher than his old set.

“What else are we going to see?” Callie asked.

“I don’t know. Floating cities, more clouds…hopefully not sky pirates. What about all of your books, don’t they talk about Atmo?”

She shook her head. “New books are kind of hard to come by.”

“Because paper is hard to make up here?”

Callie shrugged, transfixed on the horizon. “Partly, but when the cities were built, they couldn’t take everyone that survived the overload, so they focused first on taking doctors, scientists, engineers—basically the people they felt could keep humanity afloat—and since everyone else had to make it into one of the cities by lottery, not a whole lot of writers made it onboard.”

Ras didn’t quite remember learning that lesson in school. “Is that why you’re writing your book?”

“Kind of,” she said, drumming her fingers on the railing. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“It’s just you, me, and the wind, so I’d say it quietly,” Ras said.

“I set my book during The Clockwork War so I could investigate why The Great Overload happened without getting kicked out of the University,” she said.

Nobody liked talking about The Great Overload. The concept of millions of people exploding into vapor throughout cities deeply frightened Ras, and rightly so. Most parents avoided telling their children about it for as long as possible. Ras was eight when Elias sat him down and explained what happened as best he knew. “What’s the popular theory there?”

“All the professors would do was refer me to books in the library that were continually checked out or had the important pages missing,” she said. “I think someone is trying to cover up why it happened.”

“Well, that makes sense. If it was manmade and they survived it, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to go down in history as the destroyer of mankind,” Ras said, locking the wheel to set course for
Derailleur
before leaving the console.

“Where are you going?” Callie asked.

“To check the rigging and the engines. I just want to make sure everything is running all right before we get too far,” Ras said, “So, you were saying about ripped out pages…”

“Yes, that’s why I think it wasn’t an accident or a natural occurrence. There were a lot of books with pages missing,” she said, following Ras down the stairs to the deck. “If someone didn’t want people knowing why it happened, they’d have to rip pages out of way more books than just the ones on
Verdant
.”

Ras tugged on the ropes securing the balloon to the body of his ship, inspecting the knots. “How are you going to continue your research?” he asked as he unfastened one of the knots and began retying it.

“We have to get our engines upgraded on
Derailleur
, right?” she asked in a tone Ras recognized as one usually preceding a request.

He finished the knot and turned to face Callie. “Yeah…but if Hal was right about India Bravo being in The Collective’s pocket, we’re going to need to lay as low as we can there.”

“Well, I hear libraries are excellent places to lay low,” she said, shifting her weight back and forth playfully. “And
Derailleur
’s is the biggest of all of them. Very easy to hide in.”

He considered it. It wasn’t a bad idea, but he didn’t like being apart from the ship while it was being worked on. Leaving Callie alone to wander by herself in the metropolis wasn’t an option either. “We’ll see how things are when we get there this evening. For all we know your father has radioed out to every bounty hunter with an open channel to bring back his kidnapped daughter.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Callie said.

Ras lifted an eyebrow.

“All right, he’d probably do that,” she said. “But would they really let a bounty hunter waltz into that library?”

Ras considered it. Hiding in a place that made Callie happy beat out being trapped in a waiting room at Flint’s. “All right, we’ll check out the library. Carefully,” he said, holding up his index finger as a warning.

“If you can’t be good, be careful, Mr. Kidnapper,” she said playfully.

“You do know you’re going to have to clear all this up with your father when we get back, right?”

Callie sighed. “I’d prefer not to think about that until I have to.”

Ras checked a few other knots, satisfied with their security before heading toward the ladder down to the hold. “So, what’s got you interested in The Great Overload?” he asked, lowering himself below deck. He stood at the base of the wooden ladder and held out a hand to assist Callie in reaching the floor.

“Well, if we can figure out why it happened, then maybe there’s a way to reverse it,” she said, opening her eyes wide to drink in the little bit of light from the porthole in the otherwise dark hold.

Ras pulled the Energy bulb’s slender chain, bringing the room into illumination.

“What is that?” Callie asked, nodding toward a vehicle sitting next to the collection tank. The single seater open-air skiff sat with a wheel almost as tall as Ras at either end of it, but didn’t need to be propped up. Its bronze finished gave it a classic, sleek look, and its small wings were currently folded back into its body.

“It’s a jetcycle!” Ras exclaimed with a laugh. “Oh, my mother would absolutely kill me if she knew it was in here. It must have been Tibbs’.”

“I had him throw it in. Happy birthday,” Callie said.

“But it’s not—”

“I know when your birthday is,” she said, giving him a playful shove.

“How did he get it in here?” Ras looked over until he saw a new control panel and a hydraulic system that outlined the side of the hold. “I just thought this was a patch job, not a bay door.”

“He was going to use it as a patio…or something,” Callie said with a shrug. “He said you’d have to flush the engine a few times to break it in. I assume you know what that means.”

“More or less,” Ras said absentmindedly. It was a new model, just like anything else Tibbs ever bought. He threw a leg over the body, straddling the seat. The odometer read all zeroes. “He never flew this thing.”

The idea of a jetcycle had honestly scared Ras to death growing up. Several wind merchants he knew had died in accidents when their motors clogged and fell out of Atmo, never to be seen again. But having another transport option if something happened to
The Brass Fox
made him feel safer.
 

“Thank you,” Ras said. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know,” she said. “You helped me escape
Verdant
. I owed you.”

Ras dismounted and walked over to her, taking her up in a hug. “Your math is fuzzy.” He squeezed her tight before releasing. “Now let’s see what Old Harley left us.” He walked over to one of the Windstrider scoop engines and squatted down, running a hand over the dusty metal casing before wiping his palm onto his pant leg.

“Are they any good?” Callie asked.

“Oh, they’re fine. Well past their prime, but what isn’t?” Ras asked. He felt the cabling along the underside, pulling it into the light to inspect. “Corroded.”

“That’s another reason I want to find out if the Great Overload can be reversed,” Callie said. “I don’t think we were meant to fly. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but even birds can’t stay up forever.”

Ras retrieved a wrench stuck to a magnetized metal bar on the wall before moving to an upright toolbox. “Could you flip the left switch by the ladder?” He rooted around until he found old cables comparable to the corroded set.

At the flick of a switch, one of the engines fell silent and the ship tilted a little to starboard.

“Are we turning?” Callie asked. “Should I flip it back on?”

“We’re fine. I’ll correct course after this. Might as well keep moving forward,” Ras said. He moved to position himself on his back underneath the engine and began loosening the nut securing the cabling system. “Do you not like flying?”

“Oh, I love it out here,” she said. “It’s just…”

“Clouds get boring?”

“Nothing is boring compared to that basement,” she said. “It’s just that I want to see lakes and rivers and mountains and forests full of trees. It’s all going unappreciated right now.”

Ras carefully removed the corroded cable, but oil immediately spurted across his face.
This would happen in front of her, wouldn’t it?
He wiped his mouth before berating the engine. “I don’t care what anybody says, that was not a feature. You deserved to be updated, you know that?”

“Are you all right?” Callie asked.

“Fine. Just reminding myself what oil tastes like.” He turned his head to spit a greasy strain of saliva. “Sorry. You were saying, about those things that all sound like they’re words you know and I don’t. Rakes and livers and whatnot.”

Callie laughed. “It would just be nice to see them, is all.”

“Energy poisoning and exploding aside…you’re not afraid of Remnants?” Ras asked.

“That’s not a nice way to refer to them,” Callie said.

“What do you call them?” Ras plugged the hole with the new cables, fastening the nut.

“They’re just people that got left behind…assuming anybody is still alive down there.”

“Oh, they’re down there,” Ras said, pulling himself out from underneath the engine and wiping his blackened face with a handkerchief. “My dad knew a few pilots who weren’t afraid to dive for relics. Months later he saw their ships crewed by pale men with ragged clothes that didn’t know how to fly. Probably murdered the pilot.”

“You talk about them like they’re bogeymen,” Callie said. “You missed a spot.” She pointed to her forehead.

Ras rubbed his forehead with the rag. “I mean, it’s not their fault Atmo cities couldn’t hold everyone…I just wouldn’t want to meet the kind of people that are slowly poisoned by Convergences generation after generation. That has to do something to them,” he said. “Besides, imagine not knowing if your baby would be born a Knack—”

“I get the picture,” Callie said. “But wouldn’t it be amazing to find a way to fix things?”

“You think they’d let us land? They probably hate us for leaving them.”

“Maybe they’ve figured out why the Great Overload happened.” Callie shrugged as she watched Ras step beside her to flick on the engine. It sputtered, then backfired in a concussive blast that belched black smoke into the hold.

“No!” Ras put the rag over his mouth and ushered Callie up the ladder before flicking the engine off and climbing up after her. The smoke billowed up out of the hold behind him as they reached the deck. “Half a house, up in smoke!” He coughed. “Make that another day to
Derailleur
.”

After the smoke cleared, Ras spent the remaining daylight hours tinkering with the engine while Callie steered and kept a watchful eye on the horizon for sky pirates or The Collective.

“I can barely see where we’re going anymore,” Callie’s muffled voice filtered into the hold from the bridge.

Ras looked out the porthole to see pitch black and checked his watch to confirm his stomach’s assessment that it was well past dinnertime.

He lobbed the wrench to the wall, and it stuck against the magnetized strip with a clang. Climbing the ladder to the deck, he looked up to see Callie softly illuminated by the console’s faint blue light.

“Crescent moon’s out tonight,” she said, pointing to the horizon.

Ras looked back over his shoulder at the sliver of white barely illuminating the clouds. “We could probably keep flying if the moon was full. But at least we’ll get to see some stars.” He watched Callie crane her neck to stare up at the sparkling sky.

“Remember when you used to tell me their names?” she asked.

He did. Reciting incorrect names for constellations to the pretty neighbor girl was the closest his nine-year-old self ever got to flirting. “How old were you when you figured out what they were really called?” Ras asked. Stepping up to the bridge to join her, he gently moved her aside so he could resume command of the vessel.