The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  05

  I leaned out of the open upper half of the engine room door and let the mild air streaming by at perhaps 50 kilometers an hour, cool my face. It was hot in the little engine room. Hot, noisy, dim and dusty with black charcoal dust to be exact. I pulled a rag out of my chest pocket and after searching for a grime-free section of it, wiped the sweat and charcoal dust from my face. We were on the last stretch of our first voyage, the long Chasm Lake to Bindare stretch.

  With a few minutes before the boiler needed feeding, I had time for a breather, time to watch the tree-covered mountainside that rose up and over us slip by. Leaning out and looking ahead, I could see we were approaching a cliff-lined gorge. Looking back, through the whirling propeller, the river valley we were following twisted away into the dark, twilight haze of the deep shadow land - the river, a looping strand of silver reflecting the pale sky overhead.

  'Slacking off, are we?' KaRaya said, joining me at the door.

  'Bugger off. What are you doing polluting my engine room anyway? Get back on deck where you belong.'

  'Oh, so it's your engine room now, is it?'

  'Young Barn has generously allowed me to take effective ownership of it, at least part of it that involves work.'

  'Are you complaining?'

  'Not at all. He's also generously showed me how to keep the old engine running - no doubt because, as chief, Mom will blame him if things go "thud" down here. Still, I'd rather be learning and running the engine than just shoveling black-cake, or standing around on the bridge watching a dragon do my job.'

  'Aye, it's a might cushy berth. Which is why I've risked getting black cake dust on my uniform. Are we staying? We'll be in Bindare within the round, so we'll need to make a decision soon.'

  I gave KaRaya a questioning look. 'Well, we're partners, so it's not for me to say. Tell me, what will our coins buy us in Bindare?'

  'Oh, a room, a bath, then a monorail ticket to Quandadar, a ferry ride up to Daedora, and maybe 20 rounds in a clean boarding house and meals. 50 in a dive.'

  'And our prospects of a ship?'

  She shrugged. 'Fair. Good, if you're not choosy.'

  I considered that for a moment, watching the moss and vine covered cliffs slowly approach. 'I'm in no hurry. I'd like some more coins in my pocket, for a cushion. And I'd like to feel that I can find some sort of berth as an engineer, not a stoker, when it comes time to sail the wide-sky. However, if you're in a hurry to get back to the wide-sky, I'll not say no.'

  She laughed. 'I'm in no hurry at all. I don't mind a cushy berth. We ain't getting rich, but I ain't in any more of a hurry to get back to the wide skies than you. You're the one on a quest, so if you aren't in a hurry, we're not.'

  'Then it's settled. We'll stay on until one of us gets restless. I guess the boiler needs another shovel of black-cake...' I said, turning back to the dim noisy engine room.

  'Right. Now I've got another watch to stand before we get back to Bindare, so I'm going to try and get a nap in.'

  I laughed. 'Good luck with that.' The voyages between the little towns usually did not last more than half a round, and after the cargo was cleared, we could get some sleep with the barge silent on the ground. However, KaRaya and I, as the lowest members of the crew, had to take turns guarding the barge and any deck cargo while the others slept. We'd usually spend a full round at each stop, as each community kept its own rounds, so you never knew where in the local round you'd be arriving at. If you arrived too near the sleep watch, we'd wait for the next round to unload. And well, everyone needed their sleep, and as I've mentioned, sleeping on the Shadow Bird in flight was nearly impossible. Between the beating of the three big blades overhead, and the drive propeller, the thumping and grumbling of the steam engine and the rattling of just about everything on the barge - the thin aluminum deck house siding, the doors in their frames, the windows in theirs, the barge made quite a racket. It lacked that ghosting along like a cloud one enjoyed traveling in an electric powered zep.

  I wondered if they have zeps in the Principalities... I knew one zep builder. He tried to kill me. Still, there might be a market for them. Something to think about.