by Philip Reeve
There was another spattering of applause. Mayor Browne looked as if he had expected more, but acknowledged it anyway, turning to check who his supporters were – von Neumann of Winterthur, Dekker-Stahl from the Dortmund Conurbation, and a few dozen battle-hardened mayors from harvester-suburbs. He signalled for quiet before the applause had a chance to peter out of its own accord. “Some of you think I speak too boldly,” he admitted. “But Manchester has agents in the lands of the Green Storm, and for weeks now all of them have been telling us the same thing. General Naga is a spent force. That little Aleutian dolly-bird he fell for is dead, and the old fool has lost the will to live, or fight, or do anything but sit alone in his palace and rail at the gods for taking her off him. And without Naga, the Storm is leaderless. Gentlemen, this – oh, and ladies – this is the moment to attack!”
More applause, stronger this time. Several voices called out “Well said, Browne!” and “We’ll all be in Tienjing by Moon Festival!”
Kriegsmarshal von Kobold had heard enough. He stood up and shouted in his best parade-ground roar, “It would not be honourable, Herr Browne! It would not be honourable, to take advantage of Naga’s grief like that! We know the real cost of war, out here on the line. Not just money, but lives! Not just lives, but souls! Our own children are turning into savages, in love with war. We must do all we can to make sure this peace lasts!”
A few people cheered him, but many more shouted for him to be quiet, to sit down and stop spouting defeatist Mossie clap-trap. Von Kobold had not realized that so many of his comrades would be ready to listen to Browne’s warmongering. Had these few months of peace been enough to make them forget what war was like? Did they really think there would be any winners if they let the fighting start again? They were as bad as Wolf! He glared about him, feeling indignant and hot and foolish. Even his own staff officers looked embarrassed by his outburst. He started to shove his way along the row of seats towards the nearest exit.
“Gentleman,” Adlai Browne was saying, “what I’m hoping we can thrash out today is not so much a battle plan, more a menu. The lands of the Green Storm lie before us, defended by a weary, ill-equipped army. Whole static cities like Batmunkh Gompa and Tienjing, countless forests and mineral deposits which the barbarian scum have refused to exploit, all lie waiting to be eaten. The only real question for us is how shall we divide the spoils? Which city shall eat what?”
Feeling sick, the old Kriegsmarshal pushed his way out of the council-chamber. The sounds of cheering and booing and furious arguments followed him all the way down the corridors of the Civic Hall and into the park outside, but at least out there the air was fresh and the breeze was cool. He hurried down the steps and ducked under the security barriers which Browne’s people had erected to keep sightseers at bay. The crowds had gone now, except for a few picnickers on the lawns. Paper hats and placards lay strewn among the fallen blossom on the metal paths. A discarded newspaper blew past, Nimrod Pennyroyal’s photograph on the front page. Ridiculous! thought von Kobold. The whole world tilting back into chaos and all the papers were interested in was the latest gossip about that absurd writer fellow…
He strode across the grass to an observation balcony. Standing against the railings he breathed in deeply, gazing eastward towards the armoured ramparts of his own city, and then east again, to no-man’s-land. It was three weeks since Wolf had left Murnau. What was he doing now? Where was that nasty suburb of his? What would become of it if the war began again?
“Von Kobold?” asked someone close behind him. “Kriegsmarshal von Kobold?”
He turned, and saw an impertinent, overdressed stranger with ginger whiskers. The young man looked slightly demented. Kobold almost regretted that he had left his staff officers behind in the council hall. But he was not going to let himself be scared by a ferrety little scrub like this, so he drew himself to attention and said, “I am von Kobold.”
“Varley.” The stranger held out a hand, and he could think of no good excuse not to shake it. “Napster Varley,” said the man, beaming at him. A gold tooth blinked like a heliograph. “I popped down here, hoping to speak to your little conference, but they wouldn’t let me in. So I was hanging about, waiting for it all to finish so I could buttonhole one of you on your way back to your airships, and I noticed you wandering about. Stroke of luck, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Oh, it is indeed, Herr Kobold!” (Hair Kobold; his pronunciation made the Kriegsmarshal wince.) “You see, sir, I’m in the air-trade. A dealer in curiosities. And curious is the word for the little item I’ve got aboard my ship, sir, just waiting for the right buyer. So when I saw you, sir, walking through the park here, all alone, like, I said to myself, ‘Napster,’ I said, ‘the Gods of Trade have sent him here so you can go and tell him what a bargain is waiting for him, up at Airhaven.’”
“Airhaven?” said von Kobold, and glanced to leeward, where the flying town was drifting above a haze of city-smoke a few miles away. Nobody was going to lure him to a place like that! A free port, probably a nest of Mossie spies and assassins. He stepped away from Varley and started walking back towards the Civic Hall, calling over his shoulder, “Whatever you’re selling, Mr Varley, I am not interested.”
“Oh, yes, you are, sir!” said the merchant, hurrying to catch him up. “Least, you will be when you find out what it is. Could be important, sir. For the war effort, like. I’m only trying to do my bit, sir.”
Von Kobold stopped, wondering what on earth the man was talking about. Shady scavengers were always emerging from the Out-Country with bits of Old-Tech which they claimed would end the war. Most of them were charlatans, but you could never be sure… “If you think it might be important,” he said, “you should take it to the authorities. Either here in Manchester, or in Murnau. They’ll know what to do with it.”
“Ah, but I don’t suppose they’ll reward me for my troubles, will they, sir? And I’ve taken considerable trouble to acquire this item, so I shall want a considerable reward.”
“But if you are a good Municipal Darwinist and you think this thing can help us…”
“I’m what you might call a Municipal Darwinist second, sir,” said Varley, “and a businessman first.” He shrugged, and muttered, somewhat perplexingly, “Scatter cushions! Grandma had the right idea! I never thought it’d be so hard to find a buyer…”
Von Kobold turned away again, but before he could walk on, the merchant’s hand closed on his sleeve. “Look, sir!” he said. He was holding out some sort of photograph. Von Kobold, who was too proud to wear his reading-glasses in public, could not make it out. He pushed Varley away, but the merchant stuffed the photograph into the breast pocket of his tunic and said ingratiatingly, “I expect you’ll want to come and arrange a price, sir. You’ll find my ship on Strut 13, Airhaven Main Ring. Varley’s the name, sir. And the reserve price is ten thousand shinies…”
“Well, of all the infernal…” von Kobold started to say, but he was interrupted by the voice of his aide, Captain Eschenbach. The young man was hurrying down the steps of the civic hall, and Varley, seeing him, ducked between some nearby bushes and went scurrying away.
“Was that fellow bothering you, Kriegsmarshal?” asked Eschenbach, drawing level with von Kobold.
“No. A crackpot; nothing.”
“You should come inside, sir,” the young man said. “They are discussing battle plans. Deciding which city attacks which sector of the enemy’s territory. Browne has bagged the static fortress called Forward Command for Manchester; Dortmund is to take everything on the east shore of the Sea of Khazak. There’ll be nothing left for us, sir, if you’re not quick. We don’t want to lose out…”
“Lose out?” Von Kobold narrowed his eyes, scanning the park for Varley. There was no sign of him, unless he was aboard that balloon taxi lifting off from a platform at the tier’s edge. “Is this what it has all been for?” he asked. “Just so men like Adlai Browne can turn the Storm’s lands into one enormous all-you
-can-eat buffet? Why can’t we let them live in peace?”
Eschenbach frowned, trying hard to understand but not quite managing it. “But they’re Mossies, sir.”
Von Kobold started to walk towards the council hall. “Poor Naga,” he said. He climbed the stairs, and went inside to fight his city’s corner, forgetting all about the photograph which Napster Varley had pushed into his pocket.
25
THEO IN AIRHAVEN
By late afternoon the sky around Airhaven was humming with traffic. Everyone knew that Adlai Browne had brought Manchester east for the sole purpose of getting the war started again, and the air-traders were eager to do as much business as possible before they took off for safer markets, further west. To and fro between the cities and the flying town went the freighters and the overladen balloons, while high above them, ever-watchful, the Flying Ferrets wheeled like flocks of starlings. But Orla Twombley’s airmen were on the lookout for Green Storm attack-ships, and they paid no attention to a greasy little Achebe 100 which came puttering out of the west that evening to slip into a cheap berth on Airhaven’s docking ring.
She was called the Shadow Aspect, and she had been captured from the old League long ago, and converted into a merchantman. She was not much, but she was the best that Hester had been able to afford after she sold her sand-ship. All the way from Africa Hester had grumbled about her leaky cells and racketing engines, and cursed the used-airship dealer who had sold her such a death-trap. But Theo, who had been doing most of the flying, had grown used to the Shadow’s little ways; he secretly thought she was a fine old ship, and in the quiet of the night-watches he had whispered kindly to her, urging her on her way, “Go on; just a little longer; you can make it…”
And now she had made it; the long voyage was over, and the sight of all those cities arranged on the earth below him like monstrous chess-pieces filled Theo with anger and fear. Cities were his enemies. They had been the enemies of his people for a thousand years. What was he thinking of, coming into the heart of this vast cluster of them? He had no hope of rescuing Lady Naga from whatever prison the townies had penned her in. She would not have expected him to try; she would not want anyone to die for her sake…
The Shadow’s docking-clamps clanged against the strut. Theo cut her engines, and the sounds of Airhaven spilled into the gondola; shouts of merchants and stevedores, rattling chains, a hurdy-gurdy playing somewhere, a trader manoeuvring at the next strut. A boy with a bucket and a long-handled squeegee came running to clean the Shadow’s windows, but Hester waved him away, and a glimpse of her angry, hideous face was enough to send him scuttling off.
Hester was in a foul mood. She had hoped to overtake the Humbug in mid-air, where she thought she could board it and rescue Lady Naga with ease. But although the Shadow Aspect had no cargo, and four engines to the Humbug’s two, it had taken Hester too long to discover where Napster Varley was going, and he had beaten them to Airhaven. Boarding the Humbug would be difficult here, where there were harbour officials and security men and passers-by who would interfere. She looked round at Shrike, standing statue-still in the shadows at the rear of the flight-deck. “Better hide yourself, old machine,” she said.
“YOU MAY NEED ME.”
“Not here. There are a lot of townies aboard, and if they see you stalking about they’ll think we’re Green Storm. Anyway, somebody might remember your last visit, when you tore the place half to pieces looking for me and Tom. Wait in the hold; if I need you, I’ll call you.”
Shrike nodded, and climbed the companion-ladder into the envelope. Hester pulled up her veil, slipped on dark glasses, and opened the exit-hatch. “Coming?” she asked Theo.
The tavern called The Gasbag and Gondola had survived through all Airhaven’s changes, and still occupied the same sprawling assemblage of lightweight huts that Hester remembered from her first visit to the free port. But in the intervening years the air-trade had split, like the world below, into townies and Mossies, and the Gasbag and Gondola had become a townie haunt; No Dogs, No Mossies, read a scrawled message in white paint above the door. The traders clustering around its small, dirty tables came from Manchester and Dortmund and Peripatetiapolis, from Nuevo Mayan steam-ziggurats and Antarctic drilling cities. Framed posters and cartoons on the walls mocked the Green Storm, and the dartboard was printed with the bronze face of the Stalker Fang.
Hester stopped at the shrine to the sky gods, just inside the door, and sighed irritably as Theo cannoned into her. She rummaged in her coat pockets and found a few pennies which she dropped into the airship-shaped charity box of the Airman’s Benevolent Fund. A fat waitress bustled over, eyeing them rogueishly as if she thought that Theo was Hester’s boyfriend, and that Hester had done rather well for herself. Hester felt suddenly proud, as if it were true.
“We’re looking for Varley,” she told the woman. “Trader. Lately in from Africa. Heard of him?”
“You’re in luck. He’s by the window there. Watch out though; he came back from Manchester in a nasty mood.”
Outside the circular window which the waitress pointed at, the evening clouds were glowing as the sun began to set, but the young man who sat at the table beside it was not enjoying the view. He was reading a book, and reaching out from time to time to pick half-heartedly at a bowl of chargrilled locusts.
“Napster Varley?”
“Who’s asking?” Varley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, looking Hester up and down. He closed his book. It was called The Dornier Lard Way to Successful Haggling and a dozen pages had been marked with mean, grubby stubs of paper. When he saw Hester looking at the title he hastily turned it face down. “I don’t know you,” he said. “What ship you from?”
“Shadow Aspect,” said Hester.
“Never heard of her.” He studied Theo, and asked him, “What city do you come from? What’s your business?”
“We’re from—” Hester started to say.
Varley cut in. “I asked the boy.”
Theo, who was not a good actor, wished Wren was there instead of him. He still remembered the way she had run rings around old Pennyroyal and Nabisco Shkin with her stories back in Brighton. Doing his best to emulate her, he lied, “We’re from Zanzibar.”
“We heard you had something that we might want to buy,” said Hester.
Varley looked interested, but still suspicious. “Sit down,” he said, pushing a chair out with his foot. “Have a locust. So what have you heard about my business, and where did you hear it?”
“Grandma Gravy,” said Hester.
“You trade with Grandma?”
“We’re old friends. She told me you had a very important prisoner aboard.”
“Shhh!” hissed Varley. He leaned across the table and said in a smelly whisper, “Don’t talk about my merchandise that way, lady. I don’t know who’s listening. The Airhaven authorities don’t like the slave trade. If they thought I was trying to shift a live cargo on their patch there’d be hell to pay.”
Theo felt so angry and disgusted that he could happily have hit the man. He still bore the scars and bruises of his time in Cutler’s Gulp, and the shame of his captivity on Cloud 9 had never completely faded: he knew all too well what that harmless-sounding phrase “live cargo” meant.
Hester seemed unmoved. “Found a buyer yet?”
“I opened negotiations with the Kriegsmarshal of Murnau a few hours ago,” said Varley, looking shifty. “Nothing’s been finalized.”
“I’m interested in buying,” said Hester.
Varley snorted, shook his head, and returned to his locusts, eating greedily now, as if talking business had brought back his appetite. “You couldn’t afford what I’m asking,” he said, through a crunchy mouthful.
“Maybe I could.”
Varley looked up sharply, and spat out a wing-case. “You ain’t from Zanzibar,” he said. “Your fancy-boy might be pretty, but he’s a lousy liar. Who are you?”
Hester said nothing, and kicked Theo’s ankle under
the table, warning him to stay quiet too.
Varley grinned. “Gods almighty!” He lowered his voice to a whisper again. “You’re the Storm, ain’t you? I been wondering if any of you lot would turn up. Don’t worry; I’m broad-minded. Gold is gold to Napster Varley, whether it comes from the coffers of a Traktionstadt or the treasure-houses of Shan Guo. So what’s she worth to you, your empress? You’ll have to hurry, mind. Everyone’s saying the fighting’ll break out again in a day or so. You’ll want to get her safe in Mossie-land before that happens, won’t you?”
“What are you asking?” said Hester.
“Ten thousand in gold. Nothing less.”
“Ten thousand?” Theo had a hollowed-out feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he had let himself imagine that it might just be possible to buy Lady Naga back, but… Ten thousand in gold! Varley might as well ask them for the moon!
“I’ll think it over,” said Hester calmly, pushing back her chair. “Come on, Theo.”
Varley waved a locust at her. “You do that, honeybunch. My ship’s the Humbug, over on Strut 13. Just bring me the money, and hand it over nice and polite.”
“We’ll want to see the merchandise first,” said Hester.
“Not till I’ve seen the money. And I’ve got three big lads on watch, so don’t think about trying anything funny.”
Out on the High Street, electric lamps were being lit. Large moths zoomed about in the twilight, pursued by enterprising boys with nets who planned to roast them and sell them as tasty snacks. Some lingering maternal instinct made Hester flinch each time one of the urchins darted close to the unfenced edges of the quays. She told herself not to be so soft; these kids were born in the sky; too canny to fall; even if they did, the Airhaven authorities had stretched safety nets between the mooring struts to catch anyone who stumbled overboard.