by Gene Wolfe
“All right, I’ve got faith. Slashing Sphigx, succor us! Meanwhile I need a place to set us down on.”
“I said I couldn’t repair your engines. I said it because it’s the truth. I should have added — as I do, now — that if only we were doing the gods’ will instead of opposing it, a way to repair them—”
“Sir!” The pilot pointed.
“I see them. Can you get us over there?”
“I think so, sir. I’ll try.”
Silk leaned forward, squinting. Hyacinth said, “Something like ants, but they’re leagues and leagues away.”
“That’s a caravan,” Hadale told Silk, “could be one of ours. Even if it isn’t, they’ll have food and water, and a few of us can ride to the city to guide a rescue party.”
“I just hope they’re friendly,” Hyacinth murmured.
Rubbing her hands, Hadale looked ten years younger. “They will be soon. I’ve got two platoons of pterotroopers on board.”
Chapter 15 — To Mainframe!
“Silk say.” Settling on Auk’s extended wrist, Oreb whistled sharply to emphasize the urgency of his message. “Say Auk!”
“All right, spill it.”
Matar prodded Auk’s ribs with the muzzle of her slug gun. “The lieutenant says for you to stop leaning out of this port. She’s afraid you’ll jump out.”
Auk withdrew his head and arm. “Not me. I could, though. With our gun deck — that what you call it?”
Both Matar and Chenille nodded.
“Shaggy near on the ground like this, it’s maybe eight cubits. That’s sand down there, too, so it’d be candy.”
Matar was studying Oreb. “Where did you find that bird? I thought your calde had it.”
“Girls go,” Oreb reported hoarsely. “Say Auk.”
“He just flew down and lit on me,” Auk explained. “Me and him’s a old knot.” Gently, he stroked Oreb with his forefinger.
Chenille told Matar, “We were together down in the tunnels under our city. It was pretty rough.”
“It was, my daughter.” Incus joined the group. “It was there, however, that I received the divine favor of Surging Scylla, our patroness.”
From her seat at the front of the gondola, the lieutenant called, “What are you talking about back there?”
“Tunnels, sir.” Matar was a lean young woman two fingers smaller than most.
“There,” Incus elucidated, “I learned to load and shoot a needler.” He approached the lieutenant, his plump face wreathed in smiles. “It is an accomplishment of which very few augurs indeed can boast. I had a most excellent teacher in my faithful friend Corporal Hammerstone.”
“Girls go,” Oreb repeated. “Camels. Girl take.”
“Matar!” the lieutenant called. “Get over here.” Matar hurried to obey.
Maytera Marble caught Auk’s sleeve. “There’s something else,” she whispered. “That little cat creature Patera’s wife had is back.”
Auk nodded absently. “He’s got word from Silk, I’ll lay.”
“Something about milk and mammals,” she explained, “and strong twine off caramels. I can’t quite make out what it’s so excited about. Gib has it.”
“That’s camels in a caravan,” Auk said under his breath. “I saw ’em, and I saw troopers going after ’em. Now I got to take the dell and her jefe before that flash little butcher does it and nabs the credit.”
The flat crack of a needler came from the front of the gondola; a woman screamed.
Silk had been watching two distant Trivigauntis probe the desert sand for soil with enough cohesion to hold a mooring stake. As the faint thuddings of the heavy maul reached the cockpit, he turned to the pilot. “Could we take off without untying those ropes?”
“The mooring lines?” The pilot shook her head.
“That’s unfortunate. It might have saved lives.” He sat down beside Hyacinth again and took her hand, listening to the moan of a winter wind that raised sand devils in the distance.
“We ought to have half a dozen more,” the pilot told him. “We will, too, pretty soon. We use twenty-four at home.”
“You have five already.” The number suggested Hyacinth’s five fingers; Silk raised them to his lips, kissing them and the cheap and foolish ring that had been the only ring they had. His padded leather seat lifted sharply beneath him, a forceful upward push like that of Blood’s floater rising from the grassway. “Feel that?” the pilot said.
Hyacinth pointed. “Something flashed way over there.” She swung wide the pane they had opened for Tick.
“Don’t do that,” the pilot told her. “We’ve got plenty of cold air in here already.”
Silk put his own finger to his lips. Almost beyond the edge of hearing, faint, irregular booms filled the intervals between the blows of the maul. “They’re firing,” he informed the pilot. “I know the sound from the fighting in our city.”
Then the gondola heaved beneath them again, faster than the moving room had ever moved, and wilder even than Oosik’s armed floater — rocked and shook them as it soared into the air.
Nearer than the besieged caravan, a slug gun boomed, loud among the gondola’s tormented creaks and groans. Reeling, the pilot jerked out her needler. Hyacinth knocked it from her hand and rammed both thumbs into her eyes, kicking savagely at her knees until both she and the pilot fell.
“What are you doing?” Auk inquired.
“Dropping ballast.” Silk pointed. “If you’ll look down there, you should see something like smoke falling from under the rear gondola.”
Auk thrust his head and shoulders through the opening left by a shot-out pane of glass. “Yeah.”
“That’s desert sand,” Hyacinth explained. “They started shoveling more on as soon as we got down, and the pilot told us about it. You can make this go up with the engines, or pull it down with them. That’s what we did when we landed. But if you want to fly high up for a long while, the easiest way’s to drop sand like he’s doing.”
Chenille said, “This floor’s about level now.”
Silk nodded, pointing toward the bubble in a horizontal tube on the instrument panel.
Auk took the seat nearest him. “If you want me to, I can get somebody else to do this. Even that pilot. I’d have one of ours sit here to watch her.”
“She’s blind,” Silk told him. He threw a lever on the instrument panel. “Hyacinth blinded her. I saw it.”
“She’s just got sore eyes, Patera. She’ll be dandy.”
Hyacinth sat on Silk’s left. “You like this, don’t you?”
“I love it — and I’m terrified by it at the same time. I’m afraid I’m going to kill us all; but the pilot or another Trivigaunti might do so intentionally, and I certainly won’t. But…” His voice trailed away.
“Even if we had a pilot we could trust, you’d want to.”
He cleared his throat. “We do have a pilot we can trust — me. I’m not very experienced as yet, but there must have been a time when that woman wasn’t either.”
Chenille sat down next to Hyacinth. “You poke her glims?”
Hyacinth nodded. “She was going to shoot us, Chen.”
“No shoot!” Oreb sailed into the cockpit.
“Right,” Hyacinth told him. “That’s what I thought, but we had shooting anyway when Auk’s culls fought it out with the troopers watching the general.”
“Only Patera’s still sort of bothered by what you did to her. I can tell.”
Silk glanced at Chenille. “Am I so transparent as that?”
“Sure.” She grinned. “Listen, Patera. Do you think us dells at Orchid’s were always really polite? Do you think we always said please and thank you, and excuse me, Bluebell, but that gown you’ve got on looks a whole lot like one of mine?”
“I don’t know,” Silk admitted. “I would hope so.” From his shoulder, Oreb eyed him quizzically.
“You think I’m rough because I’m big, and you think those dells from Trivigaunte are because the
y don’t wear makeup, and they had needlers and slug guns. I never had to fight a lot at Orchid’s because I was the longest dell there. You know where Hyacinth comes on me?”
“I believe I do, yes.”
“Without those heels she always wears, the top of her head doesn’t even hit my shoulder. She’s beautiful, too, like you always say. The whole time she lived there, she was the best-looking dell Orchid had, and Orchid would tell you so herself. You know who looks the most like Hy now? It’s Poppy, and Poppy looks like Hy about as much as a sham card looks like a lily one. You know how that is? They look the same till you look hard, but when you do you know it’s not even close. The gold in the sham one looks brassy, and it feels greasy. You look at Hy, at her eyes and nose. Look at her chin. Just look! The first couple weeks I knew her I couldn’t see her chin without feeling like a toad in the road.” The huskiness that affects women’s voices when they speak of matters of genuine importance entered Chenille’s. “Poppy’s cute, Patera. Hy’s real gold.”
“I know.”
“So just about everybody hated her.” Chenille coughed. “I nearly did myself. The second or third day—”
“Second,” Hyacinth interjected.
“She came to the big room with a mouse under both eyes. Orchid threw a fit. But you know what?”
Silk shook his head; Hyacinth said, “That’s plenty, Chen,” and he swiveled his seat to face Chenille. “Please tell me. I promise you that I won’t hold it against her, whatever it is.”
“No talk,” Oreb croaked.
“I was going to tell you what happened next, but I’ll skip it. She doesn’t want me to, and she’s probably right. Only she learned fast. She had to, or she’d of been killed. A couple days after that I saw a dell shove her, and Hy tripped her and wrapped her with a chair. A lot of the other dells saw it too, and they left her alone. Are you wanting to ask something?”
Silk said, “No.”
“I kind of thought you were, that you were about to ask me if Hy and I ever got into it.”
Hyacinth shook her head.
“If I could’ve worn her clothes, maybe we would. Or if she could’ve worn mine. We weren’t a knot, either, I’d be lying if I said we were. For one thing, she wasn’t there long enough. I didn’t like her a whole lot, even, but there were things I liked about her. I told you one time.”
Auk said, “Sitting in that thing they got for the grapes back at your manteion, Patera. I was there.”
Silk nodded. “Yes, I remember. I could tell you what you said, Chenille, almost word for word — not because my memory’s remarkable, but because Hyacinth is so important to me.”
He turned away to scan the instrument panel and the cloud-smeared sky, then turned to Auk. “As a favor, would you please bring Sciathan?”
“Sure.” Auk rose. “Only I got to talk to you about those engines, see? I need you to tell me what you did to ’em, and if we’re going to lose any more.”
“I’ll get him,” Hyacinth said, and left the cockpit before Silk could stop her.
Chenille leaned nearer Silk. “She thinks you ought to be proud of her. I do too.”
He nodded.
“Only you’re not, and it hurts. The first time you saw her she had a azoth, and you had to jump out the window to get away. Isn’t that right? Moly told me.”
“It was terrifying,” Silk admitted. Although he was not perspiring, he wiped his face with the hem of his robe. “The azoth cut through a stone windowsill. I don’t believe I will ever forget it.”
Auk said, “You think she was just some village chit after that, Patera?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I knew exactly what she was.”
He was silent then until Sciathan came into the cockpit and bowed, saying, “Do you desire to speak to me, Calde Silk?”
“Yes. Have you flown an airship like this one?”
“Never. I have flown with my wings many times, but we crew have nothing like this save the Whorl itself, and that is flown by Mainframe, not by us.”
“I understand. Just the same, you know a great deal about updrafts and downdrafts and storms; more than I’ll ever learn. I’ve been flying this airship since a gust dispatched for our benefit by Molpe — or the Outsider, as I prefer to believe — returned us to the air. Now I want to leave the controls for a while. Will you take my place? I’d be extremely grateful.”
The Flier nodded eagerly. “Oh, yes! Thank you, Calde Silk. Thank you very much!”
“Then sit here.” Silk left his seat, and Sciathan slid into it. “There are no reins, nor is there a wheel one turns, as there is in a floater. One steers with the engines. Do you understand?”
Sciathan nodded, and Auk cleared his throat.
“A west wind is carrying us toward Mainframe. We could fly faster, but it may be wise to conserve fuel. These dials give the speeds of all eight engines; as you see, four are no longer operating.”
As quickly as he could, Silk outlined what he had learned of the functions of the levers and knobs on the panel; as soon as the Flier seemed to comprehend, Silk turned to Auk. “You wanted to know what I did to the engines. I did very little. I climbed up there into the cloth-covered body.”
Auk said, “Sure. I knew you must of.”
“Most of the space — it’s enormous — is occupied by rows of huge balloons. There are bamboo walkways and wooden beams.”
“I been on some.”
“Yes, of course; you’d have had to in the fighting. What I was going to say is that there are tanks and hoses, too. I’d found a clamp, a simple one such as a carpenter might use.”
Silk paused to glance at the bird on his shoulder. “It was then that Oreb joined me; I’d just picked it up. Anyway I put it on a hose, I suppose a fuel hose, and screwed it closed as tightly as I could. I doubt that it stopped the flow entirely, but it must have reduced it very considerably. It shouldn’t be hard to find when you know what to look for.”
Auk rubbed his chin. “Don’t sound like it.”
“For my conscience’s sake, I should tell you that I lied to Major Hadale — or anyway, I came very close to lying. She asked whether I could repair the engines; and I said, quite honestly I believe, that I could not. One speaks of repairs when a thing is broken. To the best of my knowledge, the engines we’ve lost aren’t; but if they were, I wouldn’t have the faintest notion how they might be repaired — thus I told her truthfully that repairing them was beyond my power. It was not a lie, though I certainly intended it to deceive her. If I’d said I might be able to set them in motion again, she would have had me beaten, I imagine, to compel me to do it.”
Without turning toward them, Sciathan nodded vigorously.
“I’ll ask Patera Incus to shrive me later today. Will you excuse me now? I… I would like very much to be alone.”
As he left the cockpit, Auk told his back, “Get him to tell you how he charmed the slug gun.”
A flimsy door of canvas stretched over a bamboo frame was all that separated the cockpit from a narrow aisle lined with green-curtained cubicles. Hearing a familiar voice, Silk pushed aside the curtain on his right.
The cubicle seemed overfilled by a bunk, a small table, and a stool; Nettle occupied the stool, holding a needler, and Saba smiled in a way that Silk found painful from the bunk.
“Poor girl,” Oreb muttered.
Silk traced the sign of addition in the air. “Blessed be you, General Saba, in the Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in that of Gracious Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and their Daughters alike, in that of the Overseeing Outsider, and in the names of all other gods whatsoever, this day and forever. So say I, Silk, in the name of their youngest, fairest child, Steely Sphigx, Goddess of Hardihood and Courage, Sabered Sphigx, the glad and glorious patroness of General Saba and General Saba’s native city.”
“Gracious of you, Calde. I thought you’d come to gloat.”
Nettle shook her head. “You don’t know him.”
“I came —
or at least. I left the cockpit — to escape my friends,” Silk told Saba. “I had no more than stepped out when I heard you and looked in. ‘When neither our fellows nor our gods spoil our plans, we spoil them ourselves.’ I read that when I was a boy, and I’ve learned since how very true it is.”
Nettle said, “She was telling me about Trivigaunte, Calde. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but I’d like to see it.”
“We go in for towers.” Saba smiled. “We say it’s because we build such good ones, but maybe we build good ones because we build so many of them. Towers and whitewash, and wide, clean streets. Your city looks,” she paused, searching for a telling word, “squatty, like a camp. Squatty and dirty. I know you love it, but that’s how it looks to us.”
Silk nodded. “I understand. The interiors of our houses are clean, I believe, for the most part; but our streets are filthy, as you say. I was trying to do something about it, and a great many other things, when I was arrested.”
“Not by me,” Saba told him. “I didn’t order it.”
“I never thought you did.”
“But you were talking to the enemy without telling us. If—” Saba’s voice broke, and Oreb croaked in sympathy.
“We each have our sorrows.” Silk let the green curtain fall behind him. “I won’t ask you to palliate mine, but I may be able to ease yours. I’ll try. What were you about to say?”
“I started to say I’d put in a word for you back home, that’s all. Because we’ll get you again when we get back this airship. If Siyuf’s not running your city yet, she soon will be.” Saba chuckled wryly. “Then I remembered where I stand. I’d forgotten, talking to this girl. I’m the general who went crazy and turned the airship east when it ought to have been headed home. That’s what Hadale told them at the Palace, that I’d gone crazy. They’ll think it was treachery and she was covering for me.”
“You weren’t insane,” Silk told her. “You were possessed by Mucor, at my urging. You were possessed in the same way at my dinner. Others must have told you about it — Major Hadale, particularly, since she is your subordinate.”
“I didn’t want to hear it. Is Hadale your prisoner too?”