by Joel Ross
“Kodoc’s getting closer,” I said.
“Only a little,” Loretta said. “Maybe he’s not as fast as you think.”
“He’s even faster-er now,” Bea said.
Swedish eyed her. “What do you mean, ‘now’?”
“Listen to the engine, Swede.” Bea’s lower lip trembled. “She’s all trembly and overheated. She can’t keep up this speed.”
Hazel put a hand on Bea’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay, Bea. The captain knows what she’s doing.”
“She’s trying to get away from Kodoc.” Bea’s voice softened into a whisper. “But even pushing the Rose this hard, she can’t.”
42
I SPENT THE REST of the morning dangling over the edge of the warship, scrubbing vents. Waves of vaporous Fog swirled and rippled beneath me, and part of me wanted to dive—but the other part enjoyed the break. Scrubbing at splattered insects wasn’t exactly fun, but at least it was easy.
At lunchtime, I unhitched my harness and headed for the sailmakers to find Hazel.
Halfway there, I heard a shout from the other side of the ship: Loretta’s shout. Uh-oh. I trotted across the side deck, raced around a corner . . . and skidded to a halt.
Loretta was standing at the harpoon with a huge gap-toothed smile on her face.
“That’s enough for today.” Captain Nisha clapped her on the back. “Off to the kitchen with you.”
Loretta saluted a few times, then jogged over to me. “The captain’s showing me how to fire the harpoon!”
“Why?” I asked in horror. “You’re bad enough with a knife.”
“Hazel asked her to!” Loretta beamed. “She’s the best.”
“Sometimes I wish she’d mind her own business.”
“You should see the captain shoot!” Loretta said, scratching her spiky hair. “She can put a harpoon through a goose’s eye at a hundred yards.”
“Don’t say that in front of Chess,” Swedish told her, falling into step with us. “He loves geese.”
“Swede!” Loretta grabbed his hand, her face shining with excitement. “Captain says I’m really good for a beginner. She’s says I’ve got the eye for it.”
“Oh, great,” I muttered. “Now everyone wants the eye.”
Swedish snorted a laugh, and we headed belowdecks as Loretta babbled about her harpoon lessons. We met Hazel and Bea at the foggium tanks and waited in line behind a couple of welders for bowls of oxtail stew. We spent five minutes stuffing our faces, then another five chatting about the name. Why call it “oxtail stew”? Everyone knew it was made from camel tails.
After we licked our bowls clean, we headed outside and scanned the sky. An uneasy silence fell, but nobody spotted the Predator.
“Where is he?” Bea asked, frowning into the distance.
For some reason, not seeing Kodoc at all was even scarier than watching him get closer.
“He’s doing something.” Swedish scowled. “He’s planning something.”
“Maybe we lost him,” Loretta said.
“Sure, I’ll believe that when gerbils dance.”
Hazel nodded toward the crow’s nest at the top of the rigging. “The captain’s got two lookouts on duty. They’ll spot Kodoc when he gets close.”
“When he gets too close,” Bea said, wrinkling her nose. “And . . . and I can’t stand it!”
“We’re all scared, honeybee.” Hazel gave Bea a squeeze. “Knowing he’s coming, even though we can’t see him—”
“Not that! I mean the engine. Listen to the Rose—she’s crying. She’s too hot. She’s sweating and crying and she needs help.”
“Captain Nisha knows what she’s doing.”
Bea clamped her jaw. “I know what I’m doing, too.”
“You’re looking after Mrs. E.”
“Would you tell her?” Bea demanded, turning to me. “Tell Hazel I should help with the engine.”
But I barely heard her. I just kept looking into the distance, where I’d last seen Kodoc’s ship. Thinking of his face when he’d said, Your name is whatever I call you.
And the tremor in my voice when I’d replied, Yes, sir.
At sunset, I met the crew in the surgery and we watched Mrs. E sleep. She looked so weak that a lump rose in my throat. The surgeon treated Mrs. E kindly and promised she’d keep her alive until we reached Port Oro, but she didn’t know Mrs. E. All she saw was a tiny, helpless old lady. She didn’t know that Mrs. E was a giant. She didn’t know Mrs. E was the biggest thing in our lives.
An hour later, we swayed in our hammocks in the dark hallway, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind whirled with worries and questions.
Finally I spoke. “How did Kodoc recognize me?”
Nobody answered.
Then Bea’s soft voice said, “He knew your mom and dad, I guess.”
I pulled my blanket tighter. “He said he knew me.”
“Well, you have to remember,” Swedish said, “he’s whackadoo.”
“He probably noticed you hiding your face,” Bea said.
“What’s the story with your eye?” Loretta asked me. “I mean, Swedish told me about Mrs. E saving you, but . . . can you feel the white gunk in there?”
“’Retta,” Swedish said warningly. “He doesn’t like talking about it.”
“No, that’s okay.” I turned toward the dark shape of Loretta’s hammock. “It feels just like my normal eye.”
“Can you see out of it?”
“Yeah, I don’t even notice the white gunk.”
“The gunk isn’t so bad, but the way it moves around like it’s alive . . .” Loretta’s voice trailed off, and I could almost hear her shudder. “Gross.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It works, though,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”
Like that settled it. Like my freak-eye wasn’t worth talking about. Sure, I had clouds of Fog drifting around my pupil, but so what? I found myself smiling in the darkness. Only Loretta could call you gross and make you feel better at the same time.
“At least I don’t have a scar on my butt,” I said.
“That’s the most important lesson I ever learned,” she said. “Never sit on a barbed-wire fence.” A wind buffeted the airship, and she groaned. “Well, that and stay away from hammocks.”
Swedish said, “I still don’t understand why Kodoc wants Chess in the first place.”
“For his search,” Loretta said. “For this fog-machine.”
“But he’s already got tetherkids,” Bea said. “Chess isn’t that much better.”
“Yeah, he is,” Hazel said, her voice rough in the darkness. “When Kodoc forced his mom to give birth in the Fog, he gave Chess powers, he made Chess into—”
“His freak.” I frowned in the darkness. “I’m, like, his creation.”
“Well,” Swedish said, “Kodoc can scream all he wants that you’re his—”
“But you’re not,” Hazel finished. “You’re ours.”
43
OUR THIRD DAY ON the Anvil Rose dawned gray and misty. Life on the warship was starting to feel almost normal, and I contentedly cleaned vents for hours, until the rigging master told me to scrub the lifeboats lashed to the hull.
Three of them were fastened to each side of the airship, stripped-down craft attached to foggium tanks for emergency inflation. Except one was different. One was a disguised cargo raft, just like on the Night Tide.
I swung over for a closer look. Then I whistled. It was totally sweet, like a one-balloon version of our salvage raft, but built for speed and stealth—for smuggling.
For smuggling me. For snatching me from the Rooftop to the safety of Port Oro.
“Which is weird,” I muttered.
I’d always known I was a freak, but I’d never suspected I was an important freak. Still, at least life on the warship was pretty good. I scrubbed, Hazel sewed, Swedish hauled, Loretta washed pots and fired harpoons. And Bea sat with Mrs. E and made dozens of twistys.
Before lunch that da
y, the rest of us joined Bea in the cramped surgery and gathered around Mrs. E.
“How’s she doing?” Hazel asked the surgeon.
“She’s getting worse. She needs the Subassembly.”
“They can really help her?” Swedish asked.
“You heard Cog Turning,” Bea told him.
“Yeah, but he’s a foghead. They always talk loco.”
“They know the sickness better than anyone,” the surgeon said. “You need to bring her straight to them when we reach the Port.”
“We will,” I promised.
“If we reach the Port,” the surgeon muttered under her breath.
Mrs. E tossed fitfully and made a whimpering sound. “Chess . . . ?”
Leaning closer, I took her cool hand. “I’m right here.”
“Under my . . . pillow,” she whispered, then drifted back to sleep.
“What’d she say?” Bea asked.
I eased my hand under the pillow and felt a hard edge. “There’s something here. . . .”
When I pulled out my scrapbook, my breath caught. I opened the first page and saw my mother’s name, and my father’s, and mine. Written in my dad’s handwriting. I blinked a few times, fighting back tears.
“She must’ve hidden it in her coat,” Bea said, her voice soft.
I cleared my throat. “We’ve got to get her to Port Oro.”
“We will,” Hazel promised me.
“Unless Kodoc stops us,” Swedish said.
“We’ll get there,” Hazel said, glaring at him, “But for now, we just keep our heads down and do our jobs.”
Keeping my head down sounded smart. Not only because I always kept my head down, but also because the mutineers were scary. Even the friendly ones didn’t enjoy being hunted by Lord Kodoc, and some of the less friendly ones blamed us outright.
After we grabbed bowls of stockfish and rice for lunch, a big sailor shouldered Swedish—hard. Swedish’s face flushed, but he kept walking.
The big sailor shoved him again. “Watch where you’re going, roof rat.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” Swedish mumbled.
“Neither did we, but thanks to you we’ve got a deathship chasing us across the sky.”
“We’ll reach Port Oro in time—”
“We won’t!” the sailor snarled. “Listen to the Anvil Rose—she’s breaking apart. The captain’s melting the engine into slag to save your sorry hides.”
“Then talk to her,” Swedish said, turning away. “Not me.”
The sailor shoved Swedish from behind, sending him sprawling to the ground. “I’ll melt you into slag.”
The other mutineers jeered, eager for a fight, and I tugged my hair lower. Okay, then. I wasn’t much of a brawler, but I’d rather get stomped than sit there and watch some guy beat up Swedish.
“Chess,” Hazel hissed. “Stay put. He doesn’t need your help.”
I frowned in surprise. Usually she’d throw herself into a fight if anyone messed with one of us. But I stayed put.
The big sailor loomed over him. “Get up, bottom-feeder.”
“The reason he doesn’t want to fight,” Loretta called, pushing to her feet, “is because we’re here as guests.”
“Mind your own business, girl,” the big sailor growled.
“See, we don’t want to offend the captain.” Loretta strolled toward him, though the top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. “Which might happen if we beat one of her dogs.”
The big sailor glared. “You calling me a dog?”
“Nah,” she told him. “Up close you look more like a cockroach.”
“Are you blind? I’m twice as big as you.”
Loretta put her hands in her pockets and shrugged. “You’re bigger, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m twice as strong.”
“Lots stronger,” she agreed.
“And twice as mean,” he said.
Loretta flashed her gap-tooth smile, pulled her hands from her pockets and threw a fistful of crushed fishbones into the sailor’s eyes.
When he grabbed his face, she slipped to the side and kicked him in the knee with her metal-toed boot. The sailor grunted and collapsed to the deck—and Loretta slammed his ear with her forehead, then punched him in the neck.
As she lunged forward again, Swedish grabbed her arm to stop her.
An uneasy silence fell on the deck, broken only by the gasping of the injured sailor. Then the other mutineers muttered angrily, and I felt a flutter of fear.
“You think that’s bad?” Hazel asked, her voice cutting through the silence. “You should see her cook!”
When one of the soldiers laughed, the tension faded. Two other airsailors helped the big guy limp to the surgery, and everyone else returned to their meals.
I was still hunched nervously over my bowl five minutes later when a metallic shriek sounded. Then voices shouted, boots tromped against the deck, and a cloud of stinking exhaust surrounded us.
Hazel touched my arm and glanced toward Bea, who was gripping her bowl so tightly that her fingers were white. That shriek must’ve sounded like a cry of agony to her.
I knew what Hazel wanted. “Come on, Bea,” I said, pushing to my feet. “Let’s find the captain.”
Bea’s wide green gaze cut to Hazel. “Really?”
Hazel nodded. “The Rose needs you.”
The three of us headed below, past a dozen frantic gearslingers, and found Nisha in a smoky corridor outside the engine room. “Captain,” Hazel said, “I think you might—”
“Not now!” Nisha snapped, her face sweaty and her blond hair limp. “I’ve got flywheels tearing my ship apart.”
“Bea can fix this,” Hazel said.
“She’s a child. Get out of here before I—”
“She knows engines the way Chess knows Fog,” Hazel told Nisha. “I swear to you, by the wind and the water, that if Bea cannot fix this, it cannot be fixed.”
Nisha eyed Hazel for two seconds, then looked at Bea. “Get in there and prove your captain right.”
Bea scampered into the engine room, Nisha followed, and I stared at Hazel.
“‘By the wind and the water?’” I asked, disbelieving. “How do you come up with these things?”
“I don’t know,” she said, flashing a grin. “It just came out.”
When we returned to the deck, the Night Tide was hovering alongside the Anvil Rose. “You can’t evacuate onto my ship,” Vidious was yelling to one of Nisha’s officers. “My clockwork’s ready to blow, too. I can’t keep up this speed much longer.”
The clatter of gears from the engine room drowned out the officer’s reply.
“Either we slow down and let Kodoc catch us,” Vidious answered, “or we think of a way to cool the engine that I’ve never seen before!”
An explosion shook the air.
A hole ripped through the side of the Anvil Rose, splintering the wood and belching gray smoke. I rushed to the railing through a crowd of shocked airsailors, and a little voice came from the cloud of exhaust.
“Sorry!” Bea called. “I had to move things around a little!”
Two seconds later, the grind of the engine softened. The clockwork ticked smoothly, and the unhealthy whine of overheated machinery quieted. The Anvil Rose was running cool again.
“Well, that’s something I’ve never seen before,” Vidious said, a lopsided grin on his scarred face. “Send that geargirl to blow holes in my ship when she’s done over there.”
Bea fixed the Night Tide after she finished with the Rose—then the airsailors on both ships cheered her, and she flushed as red as a beet.
We told the story of her gearslinging triumph to a sleeping Mrs. E, then retold it twice after dinner, embarrassing Bea a little more each time. So we reenacted the whole thing, with me playing Bea and Swedish and Loretta playing the airships.
Finally, we stopped teasing her and settled into our hammocks. Bea swayed contentedly, and I eyed Hazel.
“What?” H
azel asked.
“At lunchtime? You wanted Loretta to fight that big mutineer.”
Her bright brown gaze flicked toward me. “Why did I want that?”
“Because they think Loretta’s just a pint-sized kid. So losing to her is worse than losing to Swede. Now they won’t bother us again.”
Hazel tied a ribbon around one of her braids. “She’s like Bea. Easy to underestimate.”
“Ain’t that the truth!” Loretta crowed.
“But you cheated!” Bea told her. “Throwing that powder in his face.”
“Look who’s talking. You blew a hole in the ship.”
“I had to! You cheated on purpose.”
“Of course I did,” Loretta said scornfully. “I never could’ve beat him in a fair fight.”
44
ON THE MORNING OF the fourth day, excitement buzzed through the ship. Snatches of cheerful shanties sounded from passing airsailors, and the cook heaped extra eel in our bowls. Nisha and Vidious started flying side by side, with the Night Tide almost close enough to touch. The crews shouted to each other, friendly jeers and rude taunts—and more laughter than I’d ever imagined on a mutineer warship.
Not only were the ships flying fast and strong, thanks to Bea’s fixes, but today we’d reach Port Oro. And the Predator still hadn’t reappeared.
Dangling in my harness beside the hull, I found myself smiling. A cure for Mrs. E, freedom from Kodoc, and a big honking diamond: life didn’t get any better than that.
The wind fluttered my hair, and the Fog pooled and rippled fifty yards below me. After four days in a warship, I missed diving. It was stupid and dangerous but I longed for the freedom, the speed, and the thrill.
I pulled the scrapbook from inside my jacket and ran my hand over the cover, thinking about my father. Then my fingers snagged on a curl of plastic sticking between two pages, like a bookmark.
Huh. Had Mrs. E left that for me?