“Oh, Hayden,” Scarlet said from the foot of her bunk as he staggered to his feet. Bafflingly, she was wearing one of the Letoian's raggedy hooded cloaks. And still looked pretty, at that. “You look awful. Did you sleep at all? Here.” She held out a perfectly round red pill and a clay mug filled with tea. “Mayor Petric and her council have requested—firmly—that we all take this.”
“What…what is it?” Hayden clumsily tried to pinch the pill between his still-sleeping fingers.
“Bacterial sterilizer. To kill any foreign contaminants we might've brought with us.” As Hayden obediently swallowed the pill, she pulled a muddy-colored cloak like hers down from Po's bed. “She also sent these criminal fashion blunders.”
Mordecai, sitting on the window trunk with a book open on his knee, said without looking up, “They ain't so bad. Airy. Roomy.” He gave his left sleeve a flap, demonstrating. “Just go ahead and try to guess how many near-deadly weapons I'm keeping in there. Go on. Remember. Near-deadly.”
“I'd rather not know, Mr. Creed.” Scarlet turned back to Hayden, who was busy trying to make his fingers cooperate. They didn't seem to want to work together to unfold his spectacles. “The others have all gone,” she continued matter-of-factly, taking the spectacles, opening them, and sliding them onto his face. “Po, Nivy, and I have already been to see the turbine.”
Hayden had attributed her closeness to his bad eyesight, but once his bifocals had settled on the bridge of his nose…she was still there. Attentive, smiling. “I-it is the turbine, then?”
Scarlet paused, then said firmly, “Yes. Po's certain. But she also thinks any turbine could be fixed to operate like the Letoian's generator, with the right tinkering. Reece sent her and Gideon to the scrap market to find enough parts to make a replacement he can offer in his negotiations with the Letoians. Which should be underway by now.”
Rooting around in his rucksack till he'd found a clean shirt, Hayden asked, “Do you think that will work?”
Scarlet stared at Mordecai…or rather through him, her eyes glazing. The old man appeared absorbed in the book on his knee, absently curling one of his mustaches around a finger. “Imagine someone wanted you to trade your datascope for a different one. Not a newer one, not a nicer one, just a different one, because they wanted yours. Would you trade?”
Hayden's eyes wandered to his pillow, concealing his datascope. It'd been his thirteenth birthday present from Father and Sophie; it'd taken them months to save up enough to buy even an outdated model. All his class notes, all his work on translating The Heron's mysterious manuscript, even some kinetic stills of the Rice family from before Mother had died, were contained in that small box with his initials scratched on its back panel. Giving it up “just because” would feel like betraying an old friend.
“So what do we do?” he asked.
“Well, first,” Scarlet broke out of her thoughtful trance with a disarming smile, looking at him, “you should get dressed. Then I thought we could take the morning to explore the city.”
Hayden scrambled to catch the shirt he'd dropped in his shock. “I'm sorry?”
“It will take Po till lunch to suit up a replacement generator, and Reece at least that long to make Mayor Petric at all open to a trade. After that, I'll neatly step in to take over negotiations and do what I can with what Reece has given me, but until then…are you alright?”
A whole morning. Alone. With Scarlet Ashdown. Hayden would honestly rather tackle quantum chromodynamics than have to suffer through constantly thinking of clever things to say, or straining to not humiliate himself at every turn. It was one thing when he and Scarlet naturally fell into conversation, but the thought of being put up to entertaining her for two or three hours made his palms break out in itchy sweat.
Trying not to sound frantic, Hayden croakily asked Mordecai, “Are you…I mean, did you…would you like to come?”
Mordecai’s eyes twinkled as they continued perusing his book. “Can’t. Got some business to see to for Reece.”
“You don't have to be frightened,” Scarlet said lightly, and patted his arm. She made turning for the door to the up-downs look like a ballet move. “I'm not the worst company in the Epimetheus. Once the glamour has faded, of course.”
Hayden was still staring long after she'd closed the door and left him standing with his glasses slowly inching down his nose, as if they wanted to run away as badly as he did. He hadn't felt this cornered since Conner Rogers had threatened to stuff him into a garbage digester if he didn't swap his N.H.A. Anatomy homework with him. The only difference was that then, he'd been able to call on Reece and Gideon for help, and now, he was completely on his own.
He hadn't thought about Conner Rogers for a long time. He wondered if he still jumped whenever someone mentioned Reece or Gideon in passing.
To be fair, it wasn't that bad after the first twenty or so minutes of stammering out answers to Scarlet's polite questions about his family and his studies. Riding the up-downs with a Letoian escort in uniform, Scarlet was relaxed, chatty, graceful. Hayden was just trying to contain his queasiness at the sight of open air between the haphazardly-spaced floorboards beneath his feet.
She'd already been out with Po that morning, so the state of what the Letoians denoted as their market square apparently came as no surprise to her, but Hayden was appalled. The food for sale looked shriveled and overripe. The clothes were raggedy disasters. There was only one book vendor that he could find, and her titles were all similar: An Abridged History of Leto, Lights Out! How You Can Conserve Leto's Resources, and Evacuation Now, a Guidebook, and more of the same. The apothecary booted him from her store and told him she hoped the Raiders and Rippers fought over his bones after he called her medicines primitive blunders. He really had had the best intentions.
“I don't understand,” Hayden huffed as he sat heavily on the low brick wall quartering off the varying shops and booths. He turned the yellow barbean fruit he'd purchased over and over in his hand. “Why hasn't Honora helped? We have the resources! All this potential…” Sighing, he took a halfhearted bite of the barbean fruit.
Scarlet carefully sat down beside him. “Hayden, Honora has tried. Years ago, it was one of parliament's biggest focuses, fulfilling our role as Leto's nearest ally. But Leto has turned us away over and over again. We can't force ourselves on them just because we think we could run their planet better than they can. That’s one of the first lessons of Intraplanetary Politics…and the hardest.” She eyed the spotted fruit in his hand. “How is your barbean?”
Hayden swallowed with effort. “Disgusting.”
The apothecary (before Hayden had questioned her competence) had pointed them towards a park a few blocks from the market—only she'd called the park a “meadowlean”, and the blocks, “sheet strips”. The meadowlean would've been similar to Caldonia’s Burren Park only if The Burren had had scrubby yellow grass instead of green, and if its playgrounds had been stark black iron poles and slides and ladders on gravel lots.
“You grew up in Western Caldonia, didn't you?” Scarlet asked as they walked the edge of the meadowlean. The thick, muddy river gulped by to their left.
Hayden looked at her over the tops of his bifocals. “Yes. It was never this bad, if that's what you're wondering. But then, I've never been to the slums before.”
“That's not why I asked,” Scarlet said mildly, watching as a long-nosed boat drifted by. “Your father always seemed very Easterner to me.”
Uncomfortable, Hayden shrugged. “His parents were Easterners. He came to the Western End when he was younger than I am. For Mother. We never had much, but they put enough away before Mother died to send me to The Owl for the first few years. After that, Father's position at the library took care of it.”
Scarlet nodded, started to say something, and then stopped. She looked at him carefully, her green eyes studious. “How did she die?”
“Mother? The Five Year Pandemic.”
“My father, too.”
&n
bsp; “Really?”
“Yes.”
They walked in silence for a while, and then stopped to watch as the pilot of the boat steered it into the dark, tapering crevice in the cliff face. A few children, two boys and a little girl, were playing on a pile of boulders not far from them, shouting and laughing and fighting over the tallest rock.
Hayden finally worked up to asking, “So what about your family?”
“My family?” Scarlet repeated. She played thoughtfully with the end of one of her curls as they came up on the children. “They'd terrify you.”
While Hayden was still trying to figure out whether or not he was supposed to laugh at that, the little girl on the rocks ahead shouted, “I'm the Ripper King! And you can never leave Leto!” The boys laughed, and charged her together.
“I'm sure they're not all that bad.” Hayden tried picturing a whole family of Scarlets. Terrifying might be just the right word. “I've seen your sisters at school. They—”
“We have a stolen ship!” one of the little boys yelled defiantly, pointing at the boulder sitting on its own a little ways downriver. “We'll take it and run!”
“And we'll turn on the generator first and take it with us, so you can't follow us!”
Hayden raised his voice over the racket. “Anyways, they seem—”
“Hayden.” He paused, rattled by the shrill note in Scarlet's voice, and turned to look at her. She'd stopped walking a few steps back, and was staring, white-faced, at the children and their game. He hurried back towards her and very nearly put a hand to her forehead, thinking she was sick.
“What? What is it, Scarlet?”
But she was still looking at the children.
“I'm the Ripper King!” the girl repeated, triumphant as she pushed the squawking boys one at a time off the rocks. Then she recited like a nursery rhyme, “No ships come and no ships go, from up above or down below, unless you want the beasts to know, beware the Ripper King of Leto!”
Scarlet hired them out a carriage to aid in their hunt for Reece, and it fascinated Hayden even while he was sick to his stomach with worry over what they had learned from questioning the children. The vehicle looked like an ordinary horse drawn carriage, only where the horse should be, there was an iron, spiked sphere that left a pattern of holes where it plowed heavily into the ground. The driver, a mustached man who answered them in sour grunts more than words, now and again touched a black stick like a cattle rod to the sphere, and it sparked with blue energy, rolling faster for a time.
Just when Hayden thought he would burst from anxiety, Scarlet leaped to her feet and pointed. Hayden stood less steadily. They were passing a brick wing of The Plant, and Reece and Mayor Petric were standing before a set of open doors with barred windows. By their faces, it was the kind of conversation that was light with an effort. Hayden recognized Reece's smile, the fixed one that usually preceded fist fights and trips to the hospital wing.
“Reece!” Scarlet hollered, and nodded for the driver to pull over, which he did with a muttered complaint that was cut short by her generous tip of shields. “Mayor!”
Petric quickly replaced her scowl with a cool smile as Reece twisted to look at them, startled and then deadly serious. Both of them looked ready to say something, but Scarlet beat them to it, waving as the driver expertly pulled the carriage up to the stoop of the door. Her tip must have gone a very long way.
“There you are, Captain! Po has news for you about the ship!”
Hayden was glad the width of Scarlet's skirt half-hid him from the mayor, so he didn't have to work so hard at disguising his surprise. What was she doing? Reece played into her perfect acting skills, nodding thoughtfully and looking at his pocket watch. The children of politicians.
“And Mayor,” Scarlet continued, smiling, “I had hoped I could steal you for a short while. I didn't get quite the tour Reece did yesterday, and I'm rather curious about the city. Would you mind? In the spirit of…allies?”
If Petric smelled a trap, she hid her suspicion under an almost motherly smile. “I would be glad to. I hear you're quite the civil servant. Intraplanetary Politics, isn't it?”
She paused, her eyes flitting to something over their shoulders that made her mouth harden. Hayden managed an awkwardly casual backward glance. Out of a separate wing that burrowed back into the South Sheet, a dozen men were bearing a long metal box like a coffin on their shoulders. He shivered.
“Just…let me leave a message for my daughter,” Petric continued, clearly distracted. “I will not be long.”
She turned and strode through the open door to The Plant. The instant she disappeared from sight, Hayden grabbed Scarlet's arm. She looked away from the men and their box, surprised.
“Don't do it,” he pleaded. For once, it was easy to look her in the eye. “It could be dangerous.”
Smiling, Scarlet patted his hand, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. “You're sweet, Hayden. But Petric has no idea what she's up against. You leave her to me.” She glanced at Reece. “Minor change of plans.”
Giving her a look, Reece said, “I can see that.”
“The negotiations?”
“The floor is yours. I can't say I softened her up for you, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the challenge.”
Petric reemerged from the wing with an armed guard that escorted her to the carriage, and Hayden, avoiding her stern eyes, climbed down so she could take his place. As the driver zapped the motor sphere into motion, Scarlet wriggled her fingers cheerfully, then turned to chat with the mayor. The fact Hayden hadn't even been fazed by her kiss was proof he was seriously out of countenance.
Reece stepped up beside him, frowning after the carriage. “I almost want to follow behind and eavesdrop. It's like pitting a Freherian boar against an Atlasian nightcat.”
“How could you let her go?” Hayden demanded, swinging to face him. “Especially after last night? Nivy's note said Petric was dangerous, and you're just sending Scarlet off to negotiate with her?”
Reece took Hayden by the elbow and steered him away from The Plant and the guard Petric had left waiting by the door with a stocky rifle slanted over his chest. “Keep your voice down, Detective Nervous-Wreck,” he muttered. They turned the corner of a boarded-up warehouse and stopped, and as Hayden paced, fidgeting uncontrollably, Reece leaned against the building with his arms folded and watched. “Nivy's note didn't say the danger was from Petric, even if the woman's definitely up to something. And Scarlet's right. She's perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
“You wouldn't have sent Po!”
“Po isn't Scarlet. Hayden. Stop pacing.”
Breathing hard, Hayden spun around one last time and let his shoulder drop against the warehouse wall. He could finally, after nine years, call Scarlet his friend. He didn't have many friends; that made each one he did have invaluable. He knew being angry was only going to muddle what he needed to tell Reece—what Scarlet needed him to tell Reece—but it just kept welling up inside of him, like a heat wave.
“Hayden,” Reece sounded worried now, “what happened?”
His alarmed expression cooled the wave till Hayden's head was almost clear. And he knew where the heat was coming from. With Reece and Gideon, he could never be the strong one. This was his chance to finally be a Reece or a Gideon for someone else. And he'd stepped down and let the mayor climb up into his place.
“Hayden!”
“We were out walking, and there were these children playing a game,” Hayden recalled in a leaden daze. “One, a little girl, was pretending to be a ripper…‘The Ripper King’…and the others were trying to escape Leto. They said they were going to take the generator to a stolen ship and use it to escape.”
Reece stared at him. “So it's a coincidence.”
“No, Reece. We figured it out. Do you know why the Letoians have cut off their allies, why they're hardly ever seen anymore, why they don't usually take guests? Because they're following orders. They're not allowed to have ships!
No one comes, no one leaves! It's been this way so long, they have songs about it! 'No ships come and no ships go, from up above or down below, unless you want the—’” Hayden lowered his voice as a sharp shout from the busy street made his heart miss a step. “They do have a truce with the Rippers, though I hesitate to call it that. The Rippers let them live so long as they don't leave, because they need something only the Letoians can give them. And even then, there are sieges.”
Pushing off the wall, Reece took his turn violently pacing, muttering soundlessly for a moment. Then he shot a sharp look at Hayden. “The ship. The stolen ship in the game. Oh, wait.” He jerked to a stop, wincing. “Don't tell me…”
Hayden nodded bleakly. “The little girl. She's Mayor Petric's daughter.”
“Son of a toffer.”
“She must have overhead something from her mother. It's Aurelia, Reece. Petric and whoever is in her inner circle are going to try to take Aurelia.”
“It's more than that,” Reece said grimly, steadily thumping his closed fist against the wall. He clenched his eyes shut. “They have the one thing that's going to make her fly again. And if they've been listening to Po work on the replacement turbine, then they'll have heard enough to know how to make it work.”
Confused, Hayden tilted his head, then adjusted his glasses when they slipped. “How do you know they've been listening to Po?”
“Because,” Reece hesitated, peeking an eye open to gauge his response, “I never told Petric that Scarlet was in Intraplanetary Politics.”
It was as though Hayden had skipped a whole beat of his life. One second he was standing there, staring at Reece—and then suddenly he found himself rushing out onto the street, taking after the carriage. The space between those two points was a horrified blank.
The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) Page 16