Children of Zero

by Andrew Calhoun

  “Killed the harker and the qarlden, as well as about three dozen others. Then, if the reports are correct, she dropped off the remainder on Lahk’s Point and the Triumph sailed away with the Epoch heading north.”

  “Lahk’s Point? That’s a tough hike over the mountains to Potter’s Deep.”

  “Saeliko left them one of the Triumph’s dinghies so a few of them could sail down the coast and get help. Seems she’s more than just a butcher.”

  “Well, we were under-crewed when she mutinied. Now she’s got two frigates to crew. It’ll take her a while to get things squared away in the Cove with new recruits.”

  “And you?” Teverin asked. “Unless I miss my mark, you’ll be wanting to settle the account for that missing hand of yours.”

  “You haven’t missed your mark.” She curled her phantom fingers into a fist as if they were still there. Stabbing needles danced upward from stump to shoulder.

  “You know you could leave that to me, my dear Janx.”

  “Sorry?”

  Teverin leaned forward in her chair and placed her palms down on the polished grey-green sablewood table. Her face took on a measure of somber melancholy. “You know, I’ve been a governess for many years.”

  “And?” She didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking.

  “And I’ve learned a thing or two about revenge. I’ve heard no end of people tell me that revenge serves a purpose. They’re only partly right. Revenge serves many purposes. But not all purposes are worth pursuing, particularly when the risks outweigh the gains.”

  “Depends on how you weigh the gains, I suppose.”

  “Precisely right, but it also depends very much on who weighs the gains.”

  Janx thought she understood what Teverin was suggesting. After considering the governess’ words, she asked “You want to afford me an objective analysis?”

  “At least listen to what I have to say before you run off to what probably amounts to a suicide mission. After all these years, I consider you a friend, my Saffisheen harker. I think you understand me well enough to know that I always do my utmost to take care of my friends.”

  “And I always appreciate your advice,” Janx admitted. She meant it.

  “You’ve got a small fortune waiting for you just downstairs.”

  “Not enough . . .”

  Teverin cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I know the estate you want to purchase, and I know the owner. She has debts and owes me favors. The price will drop if I say it should drop. And if not, I’ll see that the capital extends you a special bonus for your long years of service. You’ve been a valiant, steadfast servant of the Empire, Janx. You’ve paid in sweat and blood, and now you’ve paid with your right hand.”

  “You want me to retire.”

  “I want you to enjoy the life of peace and comfort that you’ve earned. I want you to come visit me often so we can share stories of all our exploits. If you want to stay busy, I’ll create a position for you here in New Dagos. You can help me bring the riff-raff and hooligans to heel.”

  “And just forget what Saeliko did to me?”

  “Of course not. You deserve justice, and you shall have it. But why not let my women take on the risk for you? Let them do the hunting. Let them spend the hard weeks or months at sea tracking the Epoch. Let them dodge the bullets and the cannon fire when the time comes. And when it’s all over, they’ll bring back Saeliko in chains for execution. You can put the noose around her neck yourself if you’d like. Yours will be the last face she ever sees.”

  “I can’t do that,” Janx said.

  “You can’t do what?” the governess asked.

  “All due respect, and I really do mean that, but I cannot heed your advice, much as it makes sense.”

  “Because of your wounded pride?”

  “Be careful, governess,” Janx warned. “You pull the strings for many a marionette in this city with your well placed words, but I would think you would know better than to try pulling on my strings. You cannot insult me into submission.”

  “Then search your heart and tell me with all honesty,” Teverin demanded. “Why must you risk throwing your life away?”

  This time Janx leaned forward, though she could only put one hand on the table rather than two. “Let me tell you something about revenge,” she started, her voice tinged with checked intensity. “You’re not the only one with years of hard-won experience. I’ve been sailing for a very long time.” The Saffisheen leaned forward further still and she spoke in a lower tone. “I’ve seen some women driven to the ends of the seas for revenge. I’ve seen others indifferent to the task. More times than not, when you approach revenge with apathy and laziness, you only invite failure and death into your life. When you have hatred deep in your heart, you must embrace it, kindle it, let it keep you warm during the cold nights. It might seem like risk to you. It seems the safer of two paths to me.”

  Governess Teverin looked back at Janx for a long time as if searching for something in the woman’s eyes. Finally, she nodded slowly. “Well, you won’t blame me for trying.”

  “Not at all.” Janx eased down the energy in her expression.

  “Then if it’s revenge you want, then how can I help you? You know I have your interests at heart, but I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of naval resources to work with. You know the Sollian isn’t a prioritized outpost for the Empire. I can’t just give you a ship to hunt her down.”

  Janx smiled. “Actually, it’s just the opposite.”

  “I’m sorry.” Teverin’s brow furrowed in confusion, an unusual reflex for the governess. “I don’t think I follow.”

  “Rather than you helping me, I’m going to help you.”

  Teverin gave a small laugh. “Oh, well okay then. You must know something that I don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “And I suppose that whatever information you’ve been withholding has something to do with this strange man sitting next to you.”

  “Right again.”

  “Tell me. Where is he from? Does he speak Maelian?”

  “I speak Maelian,” the man stated clearly. “But it is difficult to explain where I come from.”

  Teverin looked at him, appraising his face and eyes as if for the first time. She looked back to Janx and then back at him again. “Did Saeliko cut your hand off, too? Was that her idea of a joke?”

  “Shark got me. Doesn’t matter though.”

  “Doesn’t matter?”

  He shrugged. “The important stuff is up here,” he decreed, pointing to the side of his temple with his remaining hand. “Besides, if I ever go home, I can get a new hand.”

  “Perhaps,” Teverin acknowledged, “but a wooden hand doesn’t do the job of flesh and bone.”

  “Not wood. Bioengineered replacement to augment and enhance conventional functions.”

  Teverin’s brow furrowed again. The governess’ gaze transferred back to Janx, who raised her pinky finger to the side of her temple, the Maelian hand gesture for This person has the mental wherewithal of an inbred cow.

  “Does he always say things like that?” Teverin asked.

  “Oh yes. He’s mostly insane as far as I can tell. You should hear him when he talks about his almighty savior. He’s one of those one-god cretins. He also thinks that he came from a different world.”

  “A different world?” Teverin tilted her head to the side and exhaled in an exaggerated expression of exasperation. “Janx, my friend. If it were someone else telling me all this, I’d have you escorted out of my office and I’d have a noose hung around this man’s neck for blasphemy against the Five and Twenty-Four.”

  Janx wasn’t put off by the governess’ irritation. “There are extenuating circumstances.”

  “Of which you had best tell me.”

  “He fell out of the sky.”

  Teverin turned to look at the bell on her writing desk.

  “I do not jest,” Janx said with sincerity. “I’ve known you for a long time, a
nd I would not dishonor our friendship by feeding you poorly conceived japes. I am telling you, I was standing on an island in the eastern Sollian. Saeliko’s mutiny was all of two minutes underway when we heard a noise coming from the sky. I used the distraction to make good my escape, but from my position in the jungle, I could see what had happened. It is hard to describe the scene without sounding as insane as this lunatic sitting here beside me, but I know what I saw. It was enormous; some kind of metal whale with wings that had dropped from the sky and smacked into the water. And when it hit, it must have broken into a bunch of pieces because there was debris scattered about over a huge area.”

  “And he was inside?”

  “Among others. Saeliko sent out the dinghies to go snatch them out of the sea before the shimmers could eat them all for breakfast. There were eight survivors including this one here. He would’ve bled out had the ship’s surgeon not gone to work on him when she did. Anyway, long story short, Saeliko left him behind when the Epoch departed.” Janx left out the part about her one-woman assault on the beach, the attack in which Saeliko had shot her hand off with a cannon.

  “No, you’ll have to forgive me, Janx, but this all sounds too much like the wild imaginings of a skarsh addict. Do you hear yourself? A flying metal whale with people inside.”

  “I haven’t smoked skarsh a day in my life.”

  “And even if I were to believe all this, I still don’t see what purpose it would serve. You said you were going to help me. I’m not making the connection.”

  “Seventy-two,” Janx addressed her companion, “tell the governess . . .”

  “His name is Seventy-two?” Teverin interjected.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Fine. Go on.”

  “Tell the governess what you heard before you crashed into the water.”

  Seventy-two set his eyes on the governess. He looked calm and slightly bored, as if all of the verbal exchanges thus far had been a necessary nuisance to sit through before the real conversation could begin. “Certainly.” His Maelian had only a hint of an accent. “When the airplane went down,” he started, pronouncing the foreign word carefully for Teverin’s benefit, “I heard the pilot say three words to one of the passengers.”

  “I’m already losing patience with you, Mr. Seventy-two.”

  “You might be more patient when I tell you the words,” Seventy-two countered.

  “Go on then.”

  “Not so fast,” Janx said. “Just give her the first two for now.” Janx knew better than to play her whole hand at once.

  The floppy-hair man shrugged. “Radovan Mozik,” he said.

  Janx watched Teverin’s face carefully. Upon hearing Seventy-two’s reply, the governess’ eyes suddenly widened, if only by a fraction. But in that fraction, Janx could see the impact that the words had had. In that instant, Teverin’s state of mind jumped from annoyed and confused to intrigued and confused.

  “Radovan Mozik?” the governess repeated, looking back at Janx. One of Teverin’s eyebrows lifted, betraying the depth of her sudden interest.

  “Radovan Mozik,” Seventy-two repeated.

  “And the third word . . .”

  “. . . is the location,” Janx supplied. “I know where to find him.”

  Governess Teverin exhaled again. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her fingers rapped repeatedly on the wooden tabletop, the only sound breaking the silence. “Huh,” she finally said. Janx enjoyed this rare sight – the governess lost for words. It didn’t happen very often.

  “Changes things, doesn’t it?” Janx commented.

  “You believe him,” Teverin stated, pointing at Seventy-two. Again, it wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

  “I do, but it doesn’t matter if I believe him or not.”

  “No, of course. You’re right. The possibility of him being right outweighs the risk of doing nothing and letting the opportunity slip by.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Saeliko is young. Does she even know who Radovan was?”

  “I’m not sure. But if she doesn’t, there are two Lavics on the Epoch that will. All Lavics remember that name.”

  “The location is in Lavic territory?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not somewhere urban, I’m guessing. Somewhere off the beaten track. A place where a man could disappear from the world.”

  “Yes.”

  “In the Sollian?”

  “I’d rather not say. No offense.”

  “None taken. I wouldn’t tell me either if I were you.”

  “I appreciate your understanding.”

  “Well, wherever it is, we’ll need to get there before they do. That’s for certain.”

  “Then let’s discuss how.”

  The governess looked down at the table, though Janx knew she wasn’t actually focusing on the table itself. She was thinking. Janx could see the governess’ eyelids start to blink rapidly, a habit of hers when her mind started to race. The Saffisheen could practically see gears whirring spinning away inside the woman’s head. This went on for a couple of minutes while the other two sat in silence.

  “I’ll need two days,” Teverin said suddenly, smacking a hand down on the table for emphasis, as if she had just completed a political deal. Janx was a little surprised at how quickly Teverin had come around to the idea. She had expected the governess to need more persuading.

  Janx brokered a smile. “I thought you said you didn’t have the resources.”

  “Oh, I don’t. You saw the port. The Empress hasn’t seen fit to give me the naval power to control this island let alone the rest of our interests in the Sollian. The only tool I had to strike the least bit of fear into our neighbors was the Triumph. Now it’s just a matter of time before we have to defend our towns against her mortars.”

  “You have something else in mind?”

  “Darree Corgavas,” Teverin said without a hint of insincerity. “We’re allies now; the least they can do is give you two a ride.”

  “I’m not about to tell the Lavics that we know where Radovan Mozik is. We’re talking about the most important discovery of the century. Maybe millennia.”

  “I didn’t say we should tell them.”

  Janx let out a laugh. “How in the Five are you going to convince the Lavics to take a Saffisheen and this floppy-haired maniac on their boat without telling them why?”

  “Janx, my dear,” Teverin said with an increasingly broad smile on her face. “Just leave that to me.”

  3.2 KETTLE

  He liked the view here. The Broken Hull was perched on a stout bluff to the back and side of the main community. It was accessed by a narrow and oft steep trail that wound its way up the north side of the bluff. This made it quite perilous for drunken sailors trying to make it back down after dark. Many chose instead to just sleep it off in the bushes that were sprinkled atop the escarpment and face the trail in the daylight.

  The owner of the place was a likeable enough woman in her late forties. She had started the place over a decade earlier when the hull of her ship had been smashed open on the rocks near the entranceway to the cove, hence the name. In Kettle’s considered opinion, fortune had done her a favor. The change in careers from harker to pub owner had allowed her to find her true calling – cooking. The woman made a mean chowder. The ale was good, too.

  The Broken Hull was nothing much to look at. The interior only had four tables, and the windows were too small to let enough light in. The planks of wood that made up the walls were peppered with holes, of which many Kettle suspected were due to lead balls being shot out of flintlocks. He had been in Myffa’s Cove for two and half weeks now, so he had become familiar enough with the clientele to know that he didn’t want to be around after the sun went down.

  It was early afternoon, giving him plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and the pleasant breeze. And the view. That tremendous view. The pub was dingy and repugnant on the inside, but the owner had built a surprisingly expans
ive balcony that extended out nearly to the edge of the bluff. The place was practically empty at the moment, so Kettle had claimed his favorite seat. His ass was firmly parked in a creaky old chair where he could put his feet up on the lower crossbeam of the wooden railing. He had a half-full tin mug in his grasp.

  Below him, Myffa’s Cove spread out in all its shabby glory. This was a pirate stronghold right out of a painting. Only about a third of the town was on dry land; most of it protruded out into the cove on a maze-like network of docks and elevated walkways. The roofs of the buildings were painted in different colors – mostly reds and greens – though the sunlight had faded all but the most recently painted structures. Still, it gave the town a cheery expression that belied some of the sinister activities that went on in the shadows between the rectangular warehouses and square shops and homes. In total, there were sixty-six buildings that made up Myffa’s Cove proper. Kettle had counted.

  Out past the buildings, ships sat in the blue-green water. Lots and lots of ships. Kettle could see everything from tiny little row boats to great three-masted frigates. Sloops were the most common, their single masts poking up across the cove.

  There were four three-masted frigates anchored in the deeper water away from the docks. The Epoch and Triumph accounted for half. The other two were called the Beggar’s Revenge and the Smollic Dar, the latter being Lavic for Black Star.

  The cove was horseshoe shaped with steep slopes jutting out of the water right round the rim. The only vaguely flat piece of land had been claimed by the town. At the entrance of the horseshoe, two watchtowers, one on each side, guarded the cove. The tower closest to the town was considerably bigger, but both of them sported cannons of various sizes. With all of its defenses, natural and otherwise, it was very easy to see why none of the naval powers in the region had bothered to come and stamp out piracy at Myffa’s Cove. It would take a hell of a lot of firepower and no doubt a lot of casualties to pry the masters of the town out of their fortress.

  Ah, the fortress. It was a wooden affair, tall and imposing, sitting on a plateau about a hundred meters above the town on the opposite side of the Broken Hull. Like the watchtowers, it also had cannons that pointed out toward the water. Some of the cannons sat on a grass yard in front of the fort; others were imbedded in the upper levels of the fort itself.