The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein)

by Martha Wells

  The Gardier stared, insulted. “They are primitives. They don’t—It is obvious,” she finished stiffly.

  Tremaine’s eyes narrowed. Destroyed coastal villages and ships going missing were what had drawn Ilias and Giliead to investigate the island in the first place. “If it’s obvious, why can’t you explain it coherently?”

  “They can’t be used for labor. They don’t use civilized speech. They won’t stop fighting.” She sneered. “If they do, they’re afraid of the tools.”

  The welders, the lights. The Syprians would think it was magic and would find it terrifying, would consider themselves soiled by the contact. They tried them out as slave labor, and when it didn’t work they killed them. Tremaine couldn’t say she was surprised. “And sometimes they blow up airships. How do you make the avatars?” That was the closest the Gardier’s translation spells could get to a Rienish word for the crystals and their imprisoned sorcerers.

  The woman shook her head, caught off guard. “I don’t know. That is for Command and the Scientists. I am in Service.”

  “Then you’re even more useless than I thought.”

  Tremaine let go of the translator crystal and headed for the door. Following her lead, Ilias pushed off the wall and trailed after her.

  She expected to have to argue with Averi, but as the guard shut the door behind them the colonel nodded sharply, motioning for them to go on through to the outer room. Once there she saw the usually grim cast to his face lightened by satisfaction. He said, “It’s a start. We’ll isolate her from the others, give it a few hours, then see if she’s more receptive.”

  Florian had been waiting in the outer area too. There were only two small rooms for the staff, with a small desk for the lieutenant in charge and some comfortless wooden chairs for the other guardsmen on duty, two of whom were women. “Did she tell you anything?” Florian asked, curious.

  “A little.” Tremaine shrugged. “A very little.” She was relieved that Averi seemed confident. It occurred to her that she also had Averi in a receptive mood and maybe even inclined to discuss things with her. She said quickly, “Where do you think the Gardier come from? The Syprians sail all over this area, they travel fairly far inland, and have contact with a lot of other people. But they had never seen the Gardier or even heard any rumor of them before.”

  Averi nodded, leaning against the desk and saying thoughtfully, “Those maps your friends recovered from the base show a Gardier stronghold close to where Kathbad is in our world. I think it’s possible—”

  “Colonel—” One of the women soldiers leaned into the room to interrupt them urgently. “There’s a call for you on the ship’s telephone.”

  Averi went to the other room, taking the receiver from the instrument mounted on the wall. Watching his sallow face redden as he listened, Tremaine exchanged an uneasy look with Florian. The guards in the room watched him too, caught by the growing air of tension.

  Averi finally said, “Yes,” and replaced the receiver, turning back to them. “Florian, can you find Ander? Tell him it’s the gunship.”

  Chapter 4

  Ixion had killed two Chosen Vessels that the poets know of, Lyta of Hisiae and Kerenias of the Barren’s Edge. But Vessels often disappear without trace, their companions with them, no one knowing of their deaths until their god Chooses again, so Ixion could have accounted for many.

  —Fragment of incomplete work, titled

  “Journal for the Chosen Vessel of Cineth,

  under Nicanor Lawgiver,” Abignon Translation

  The wireless officer has picked up coded signals from the Gardier gunship. When they were translated it was apparent they were instructions to a landing party.” Averi glanced back at Gerard, his face sober. “A landing party in a native city.”

  They were on the forward stairs climbing toward the wheelhouse, Averi in the lead, with Gerard, Tremaine and Ilias following. “Are we sure it’s Cineth?” Tremaine asked, her stomach twisting with guilt. “I thought the Ravenna could hear wireless traffic all the way to Capidara.” The ship had the most powerful transmitters and receivers on the ocean, or at least that was what the advertisements on the map brochure said.

  “From the heading they gave, it has to be.” Averi was out of breath from taking the stairs at such a rapid pace. “They’re searching for Rienish refugees—they seem to believe you all left the island on native transport, which means they haven’t sighted the Ravenna yet.”

  The ship hummed around them like a kicked anthill; Tremaine could hear someone shouting orders as they passed an open corridor. The ship’s telephone had found Gerard in his cabin, and Florian had hurried off to fetch Ander, Ilias asking her to bring Giliead too. Then Tremaine realized what Averi had said. “Wait, I thought we couldn’t break the Gardier codes.” It was common knowledge that wireless operators on the Aderassi front and along the coasts had always been able to listen in on Gardier traffic, but there had never been any progress in deciphering it.

  “Ander recovered some Gardier codebooks from the island,” Gerard explained hurriedly, glancing back down at her. “One of the books had transcriptions of our older codes. There was a direct translation into a Gardier code, and that’s allowing our wireless officers to understand their traffic.”

  “He didn’t tell me,” Tremaine muttered as she climbed after him. Ander being a good Intelligence officer again, she supposed. She hoped it was just that. He had at one point decided she might be either a Gardier spy herself or just stupid enough to be passing information along to one. Since she and Ilias had caught the spies in Port Rel, she had thought he was over that by now.

  As they reached the wheelhouse level metal creaked alarmingly, and the stairs swayed under Tremaine’s feet, sending her careening into the wall. She fell back against Ilias, clinging to the handrail, suddenly aware how high up they were. “What the hell…?” she gasped. It was like being at the top of a tall and unsteady tower in a hurricane.

  “The ship’s heeling over,” Ilias told her, bracing his feet on the steps to keep them both upright.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, trying to keep up a pretense of calm. “Is that another word for sinking?”

  “Turning,” Gerard explained, grimacing as he hauled himself up the railing. “Without slowing down.” Recovering his balance, Averi reached the top, wrenching the hatch open.

  With Ilias urging her, Tremaine managed to pry her hands off the rail and drag herself up. As they reached the hatch, the deck began to sway back to a more level plane. Following Averi and Gerard, Tremaine bounced off the opposite wall of the short corridor and stumbled into the officers’ chartroom.

  The room held a polished wooden chart cabinet in the corner, and there was a large table bolted to the floor, covered with maps and papers. The place was full of disheveled uniformed officers and worried civilians. Tremaine recognized the captain even though he was in his shirtsleeves and a younger man than she had expected to see; he was standing in the center of the room, hands planted on his hips, anger written in the tense way he held himself and the grim resolve on his windburned face.

  He confronted an older man in a brown walking suit nearly as well tailored as the ones Niles wore. Captain Marais was saying, “And I’m telling you, we’re not going to run again. We were forced to abandon Ile-Rien—”

  “Your orders were to take this ship to Capidara,” the man interrupted briskly. He was tall, sharp-featured, with carefully cut gray-white hair. “The civilians, the women and children on board—”

  “I know what my orders say, I don’t need you to repeat them,” Marais snapped.

  It’s happening, Tremaine thought, not realizing she had been unconsciously expecting this until now. The reality of Ile-Rien’s fall was starting to sink in, and the chain of command was breaking down. From her family background Tremaine might have been expected to be an anarchist at heart, and she was a little shocked to discover this was simply not true; Captain Marais’s defiance worried her, even though she wanted to
save Cineth more than he did. The other men in the room looked angry, determined, tense. She saw Niles standing back against the wall, arms folded, his lips thin with annoyance.

  “Apparently you do need your orders repeated,” the other man shot back. “No one wants to see an undefended city attacked, and I admit an alliance of some sort with the native people is imperative. But this isn’t a warship.” He threw a glance at Ilias, who stood near the door with Tremaine. Ilias’s eyes moved from one man to the other, wary at the air of tension in the room. Tremaine knew he couldn’t understand the conversation, but she didn’t want to chance interrupting it with a translation.

  “We’re at war with an enemy that doesn’t recognize the concept of noncombatants, Count Delphane,” one of the other civilians pointed out, his voice acerbic. He was an older man, balding and somewhat stout, dressed in a battered dark suit and fanning himself in the warm room with a folder of papers. “And we carry weapons, so of course we’re a warship. The conventions of international law simply do not apply.”

  A solicitor, Tremaine thought, pegging him instantly. A solicitor on our side, more’s the better. And the opposition is Count Minister Delphane. And she had been unnerved by Lady Aviler’s presence. Delphane gestured in exasperation. “Taking us into battle with the Gardier is as good as murdering everyone on board.”

  Marais’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve lost three ships in this war, and watched countless others go down. I don’t intend to lose this one. But I’m in command here. If you don’t like it, my lord, you’re welcome to get off at the next port.”

  Nobles in Ile-Rien, including the Queen, could be familiarly addressed as “my lord” whatever their title, but Marais made the honorific sound like a threat. The problem is, Delphane has a valid point. But Tremaine looked at Ilias standing next to her, his face tight with anxiety, and knew it couldn’t matter. Cineth was helpless against an attack like this. Delphane regarded the captain with narrowed eyes, saying, “At this time the Gardier do not even know of this ship’s existence—”

  Niles cleared his throat. “But they do. Colonel Averi?”

  Averi stepped forward, facing the count. “Unfortunately Gardier-controlled spies were present in the Viller Institute’s organization. We took some of them, but we couldn’t possibly have found them all.” He glanced sharply at Marais. If he’s smart, Tremaine thought, clinically interested, Averi won’t directly challenge Marais. Pitting the crew, under Marais’s command, and the remnants of the army detachment under Averi, against each other, with Niles and Gerard and the other Institute members as wild cards was the worst mistake they could all make. But Averi only said thoughtfully, “And I can’t believe the Ravenna wasn’t spotted at Chaire.”

  Delphane looked at him, his lips pressed together. “I was aware of that. But we’re in an entirely different world. Are the Gardier communications between wherever we are and Ile-Rien likely to be that swift?”

  “As swift as our passage here,” Gerard put in.

  “We aren’t facing a fleet, just a single gunship,” Marais said deliberately. “And we have every chance of taking that gunship by surprise.”

  Delphane watched him. “As long as they can destroy our engines, Captain, size doesn’t matter.”

  Captain Marais consulted Niles and Gerard with a look. “Well?” he demanded. “Is that true? Or can your new ward protect us from their offensive spell?”

  Niles glanced at Gerard, lifting a brow. Gerard took a deep breath, and said, “We can’t know for certain until we test the ward. But I think it will work. I’ve seen the Damal sphere,” he stumbled a little over the name, perhaps recalling that the sphere wasn’t just named for its creator anymore, “the sphere’s effect on Gardier airships firsthand. It stripped heretofore impenetrable wards away effortlessly.”

  Delphane turned to Colonel Averi, saying quietly, “So you are going to allow this?”

  Ander arrived in the doorway, breathing hard, halting when he saw the grim tableau as the ship’s captain, the military commander, and the highest-ranking civilians confronted each other.

  Averi let out a slow breath and met Delphane’s eyes. “Count Delphane, as the Solicitor General pointed out, we know the Gardier consider civilian transports, hospital ships and anything else that moves as a military target. This is a warship, whether we like it or not.” His gaze went to Captain Marais. “You’ve already changed course for the native port?”

  “Yes. At full speed.” Marais’s words were clipped. His eyes fixed suddenly on Tremaine. “Ask him to describe the harbor.”

  Startled, Tremaine managed to realize he meant Ilias and turned to him, repeating the question in Syrnaic. Throwing a narrow look at Marais, Ilias asked, “They’re going to help?”

  Tremaine felt all eyes on her, but she wasn’t going to push him. “They’re still arguing about it, but we’ve changed course for Cineth.”

  Ilias regarded Marais for a long moment. Tremaine saw a great deal of suspicion in that look, as well as pent-up fear and guilt. If he and Giliead hadn’t brought us to Andrien, this might not be happening, she thought, sick with nerves. Her part in bringing them to this point wasn’t exactly small either. Then Ilias took a sharp breath. “There are cliffs to the west, and a stone breakwater…” Tremaine translated his description hurriedly.

  Averi listened, the creases across his forehead deepening. “You want to attempt an attack with our forward gun?” he asked Marais, not bothering to keep the incredulity out of his tone.

  The weapon mounted on the Ravenna’s bow deck was an antiairship artillery piece. Tremaine tried unsuccessfully to visualize it, wondering if it could even be used to shoot at something in the water.

  Marais’s face set in an even grimmer expression, though it seemed he was getting his way. “If we can lure the Gardier out into open water, we won’t need the gun.” He glanced at Delphane, saying with pronounced irony, “You may find, Count, that size—and speed—do matter a great deal.”

  Delphane shook his head slowly. He seemed weary now that he had lost the argument. “I don’t want to leave a potential ally’s city to a Gardier attack any more than you do, gentlemen. But I hope your decision doesn’t kill all of us.”

  Gerard and Niles hurried away to get their supplies for the sorcery, Ander and Averi to organize a small military force to land and search for any Gardier left trapped on-shore. Marais had more questions for Tremaine to translate for Ilias, then let them both go.

  Out in the corridor, officers and crew sped past them, dashing in and out of doorways, yelling commands and questions at one another. Tremaine was impressed with Captain Marais; he was obviously an intelligent man, and the pressure and his nerves had wound him up like a top. She headed for the stairs just to get out of the way, but Ilias caught her arm. “But how soon can we get there?” he asked her, throwing a worried glance back into the chartroom. He looked just short of frantic. “I know we left the island heading east, but where are we now?”

  The captain had said full speed, and Tremaine knew that as a passenger liner the Ravenna had been criticized for barreling along at twenty knots in the dark and fog, and thirty knots in and out of crowded ports. But there was no way to translate that into Syrnaic. She met his eyes and said deliberately, “This ship is very fast.”

  He nodded, though he didn’t seem much reassured.

  “We need to see what’s happening,” Tremaine said to herself. An officer, fresh-faced and surely younger than Florian, bolted past them. Tremaine managed to snag his sleeve. “Excuse me! Do you know where Gerard is, or Niles? The Viller Institute sorcerers?”

  Startled, he halted, looking from her to Ilias. But she could see he was thinking that if they were up here in the wheelhouse, they must be Somebody. “They’re on the cable deck. You can follow me, I’m going there now.”

  Following the man down the forward stairs, Tremaine found herself wondering how Count Delphane, Lady Aviler and other important personages like the Solicitor General had ended up on the Ra
venna. Delphane in particular was a High Cabinet minister; he should have gone to Parscia with the government-in-exile and the royal family. There was only one reason she could think of to account for the presence of such high government officials.

  They left the forward stairs to thread back through a Third Class area and reach a passenger stairwell, taking it to the landing that opened into the forward end of the now uninhabited main hall. The officer left the stairs, saying, “This way, it’s quicker.” He led them down a passage toward a set of padded leather doors with bronze fittings. He fumbled in his pocket for a set of keys and unlocked them, revealing a room like a big dark cavern. As the man hooked one door so it would stay open, Tremaine fumbled for the light switches on the wall.

  As she pressed the first button, small indirect incandescents over a long ebony bar sprang to life, casting light down on leaping dancers in a wall mural above the empty bottle racks. The young officer said sharply, “Just the bar lights, madam. Leave the overheads off. It’s still light out, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

  It was the Observation Lounge. There was just enough light to make out the dark wooden walls and the chrome pillars supporting the ceiling. Tables, chairs and curved couches of red leather were scattered around the lower half of the room; a few steps in the marble floor led to the upper half, set apart by an ornate metal balustrade with enameled pylons. The curved back wall was covered by floor-to-ceiling curtains of dark red brocade, and it was all windows behind them. If one looked out with all those curtains open, the view would be incredible; or looking in at night with all the soft lights lit.