The Calderan Problem (Free-Wrench Book 4)

by Joseph Lallo

  He climbed up the side of the envelope, sniffing at the fabric and feeling it. This was the same. The same color, the same feel. Just like the stuff Nita used. As he moved back to the rigging and started down toward the deck, he felt it tremble beneath his fingers. It wasn’t a shake from the wind or from hammers thumping away below. For aye-ayes, every tiny motion beneath their delicate fingers was like a unique voice. And this was the tapping of an unfamiliar aye-aye.

  Wink felt a sting of resentment. Granted, this wasn’t his ship. But it was similar enough to his ship that he didn’t like the idea of another aye-aye encroaching on his territory. The feeling must have been mutual, because the trembling grew stronger. He looked up to find another inspector charging toward him, teeth bared. Wink held his ground and rattled out a message on the rigging.

  That inspector stopped! he tapped insistently.

  The charging rage-filled inspector stopped, hair standing on end.

  This one was 876552. This one kept the ship safe, it replied. 876552 was taught this. 876552 did a good job.

  Wink chattered angrily and dashed down from the envelope, swinging easily through the rigging and over the deck. The other inspector followed, but it wasn’t nearly as familiar with the ship as Wink. A quick hop and swing sent him down a line and into a side window, where he disappeared into the interior. For a few tapping, scratching steps he could distantly hear the creature following. A shout and thump followed by a panicked retreat suggested the beast had run afoul of one of the workers. Wink gave another huff, then turned to investigate the inside of the ship.

  #

  Gunner finally reached a vantage that gave him a better look at the patch of shipyard hosting additional guards. At first, it seemed the effort of coming this far had been in vain. Yes, there were armed men, which implied valuable cargo, but all there seemed to be were bundles of metal sheets and struts bundled and roughly wrapped in burlap. The item he’d had difficulty making out earlier was still somewhat obscured by a thicker haze of fug that lingered around it.

  It was bizarre the way the fug hung in a dense cloud around what to his eye was little more than a large, well-sealed vat.

  “What could cause that?” he muttered. “And more to the point, if there was so much fug gathered about that vat, why can I see it at all? Unless… is it just a curtain of the stuff, and the rest is clear? Because that would mean…”

  He flipped through the colored glass lenses of the sight until a certain combination of them highlighted a dim golden glow just visible through the seal along the top of the vat.

  “… Ichor…” he murmured. “There must be a hundred gallons of the stuff…”

  #

  Alabaster watched the work progressing below and gnawed angrily at the gag in his mouth. As humiliating as it was to be at the mercy of these ungrateful fools, by kowtowing to them, he gleaned the remaining pieces as they fell into place and found himself gazing upon the fruits of at least one part of Tusk’s plan. And it was glorious. A duplicate of the Wind Breaker. The possibilities such a vehicle could afford…

  His fertile mind was awash with opportunity. Presently, one possibility stood foremost within it. Gunner was nearly a hundred yards away, gazing intently through his sight. Digger was right beside him, armed with both a rifle and Alabaster’s own confiscated pistol, but he was more concerned about the possibility of being spotted from below than keeping an eye on Alabaster himself.

  Alabaster stretched and shifted one boot behind him. Gunner and Digger had both searched the fug man quite thoroughly before bringing him onto the airship to find this place. His blade-concealing cane joined the pistol on Digger’s belt. Likewise they’d found a handful of smaller knives, a smaller pistol, and a rather indelicate pair of brass knuckles. But that did not account for everything.

  He grinned through the gag as he hooked the boot up and probed it with his fingers. A portion of the heel slid free, and from inside he pulled a small razor. It wouldn’t have been much use as a weapon, but a deft flip of the fingers positioned it to easily slash through the rope binding his wrists. He gripped the sliced rope in one fist and cut away the gag from his mouth, then stalked slowly toward Digger.

  Fate truly favored the prepared. Here he was, half a field away from a tool that could help him destroy his greatest foes, and with a member of the wretched Ebonwhite clan standing right before him. A hundred quips and taunts flitted through his mind. Each was, of course, utterly brilliant and perfectly suited to the moment. It took much of his limitless will to keep silent until the deed was done. As a reward for this restraint, he allowed himself the treat of at least assuring Digger would have a relatively slow and painful death.

  He flipped the rope from his wrists over the head of his former captor and pulled it tight. Digger gasped and struggled, croaking in fear and anger as the rope choked off his air. Keeping a tight grip on both rope and razor proved impossible, so Alabaster let the blade drop to the ground and focused on strangling his former captor.

  “Yes…” Alabaster growled through the effort of keeping the garrote tight.

  Now that he had Digger under his control, a small taunt was allowable, he decided. After all, he owed his foe at least the satisfaction of knowing what lay ahead.

  “Appropriate that the black sheep of the Ebonwhites should be the one to hand me the keys to my greatest achievement.”

  Alabaster lamented the fact that to choke Digger properly he had to remain behind him. It would have been glorious to watch his eyes as he realized his own failure and succumbed to hopelessness.

  As it turned out, it might also have been useful to see the surge of anger that the comment inspired, as it might have prepared him for the punishing stomp to the foot that followed. Alabaster cried out in pain, then quickly followed it with an even louder howl as something shredded the sleeve of his shirt and sent a bolt of pain up his arm.

  He turned to find that Gunner, not a step closer, had drawn his pistol and fired a shot in the time it took for Alabaster to turn his head. The flamboyantly dressed fug person dragged Digger in front of him to discourage any further shooting. It worked… on Gunner, but after a few more moments the guards of the shipyard finally gathered themselves sufficiently to spot the intruders at the rim of the crater. They opened fire, forcing Alabaster and Gunner to move away from the edge.

  Gunner charged Alabaster, closing the distance between them with remarkable speed. Despite a struggling Digger in the path of any would-be bullets, Gunner was taking aim. Alabaster doubted even the infamous gunman of the Wind Breaker crew could reliably hit a target who was mostly hidden behind an ally, while running at full speed. Gunner, on the other hand, seemed quite confident, as the second shot he fired whizzed by Alabaster’s ear near enough for him to hear it.

  Clearly the time had come for a different approach. Normally ingenious solutions to a dilemma like this would flood his brain. The throbbing pain from the glancing shot to his arm, Digger’s increasing struggles, and the knowledge that any further delay was likely to result in a bullet lodging itself in that brain made it a difficult to narrow down the best course of action, so Alabaster chose the most expedient option.

  He delivered a kick to the back of Digger’s knee, causing the man to crumble. After pausing just long enough to fetch his cane and pistol, he launched himself toward the edge of the crater. Gunner managed another shot, this one grazing Alabaster’s shoulder. The lanky mastermind’s long strides carried him swiftly down the slope. It was a calculated risk. There was a chance that he would come under fire from the shipyard watchmen, but these were also employees of Ferris Tusk’s. As Tusk had beyond any reasonable doubt unleashed Alabaster specifically to deflect attention from this facility, it stood to reason that they were aware of his role and would know not to attack him.

  The gamble, along with his choice to dress in so unique a manner, paid off. Aside from a stray shot in his direction, the guards called out to ignore him and directed all their at
tention to Digger and Gunner. All the same, Alabaster continued sprinting. Gunner had managed two shots that could easily have been fatal, and each under very trying conditions and with a pistol. Digger almost certainly lacked the fortitude to handle a rifle well enough to kill him at this distance, but if Gunner got the rifle and risked a shot, he would find his target.

  He didn’t stop running until he was able to slide behind a stack of crates. One of the workers, his clean clothes suggesting he was a supervisor, ran up to him.

  “Alabaster! What the hell are you doing here? And who is shooting at us?”

  “It’s the armory officer from the Wind Breaker, you dolt! And Digger Ebonwhite! Kill them!”

  “We’re trying. How did you get here. You’re a week ahead of schedule, at least!”

  “A week ahead of schedule…” Alabaster said. “Of course I am a week ahead of schedule. The circumstances have changed!”

  “But the schedule is very specific, we have to wait until the Wind Breaker leaves Caldera before we can get started!”

  “You dolt! Don’t lecture me about schedules, we are under attack! Now listen closely. There is an airship to the east. A fast one. It is heavily armed and could easily damage this ship beyond repair, and then where will your precious schedule be? The armory officer of the Wind Breaker and a member of the Well Diggers are no doubt running for the ship now. It needs to be destroyed. And there is an inspector aboard this ship—”

  “Of course there is an inspector. We need it to be reliable. It has a long trip to make.”

  Alabaster grabbed him by the collar. “Do not interrupt me! I am telling you that there is an inspector aboard this ship that is loyal to the Wind Breaker crew. You need to find the inspector with the eye patch and kill it!”

  “This isn’t making any sense…”

  “You can listen to me now or you can explain to our mutual employer why his brilliant scheme failed because you were too much of a thickheaded lout to take the warning that was given to you.”

  “I’m not…”

  “Then I shall do it myself!”

  Alabaster shoved the man aside and rushed for the ladder, clutching his injured arm as he went.

  #

  Wink had been busy investigating the interior of the ship for the last few minutes. While the outside was almost identical to the Wind Breaker, the inside was quite different. Many rooms that in the real ship stored cargo were still set up similar to how the crew’s rooms looked. The place where the food was kept had plenty of boxes, but all of them were shut tight, and none smelled as nice as the ones on the Wind Breaker. He finally reached the room Nita spent her time in, the gig room. He liked that room on the real ship. Sometimes it smelled like coconut, which meant she was hiding good food. It was also easy to get in, because the ladder hatch and cargo hatch both led there. One way or another he could always find his way inside after finishing his inspections. This one was different. There wasn’t a winch to raise or lower the gig. In its place he saw a strange clamp of some kind, currently empty.

  It was then that he heard the shots ring out. He scrambled for the gig hatch and tried to slip out between the ship and the edge of the gig. For all his scratching, he couldn’t slip through. There wasn’t the slightest gap. The gig was actually attached to the bottom of the ship, not a real boat at all. He climbed back out and hurried for the ladder dangling down from the crew hatch, but one of the two men arguing noisily nearby was certainly Alabaster. Wink lingered, ready to bolt the very moment the way was clear. Instead, Alabaster approached the ladder and caught quick glimpse of Wink.

  “Ha-ha! There, you see! Never doubt Lucius P. Alabaster! Get your men, get your workers. Everyone needs to search the ship. We find that inspector and kill it or any plan will be certain to fail!”

  Wink ran, scurrying through the ship’s halls as Alabaster painfully climbed the ladder. Voices rang out through the ship, orders to track Wink down. Now that they knew he was there, the fug folk would block the ladders. They’d scour the ship. And though there was no shortage of places to hide, if enough people looked for him, especially people who knew the ship as well as he did, then they would find him. His only hope was to get to the mooring lines. There were two of them, and the only creatures besides rats and aye-ayes he’d ever seen use one to get on or off a ship were Lil and Coop.

  He scrambled for the nearest room he knew to have a window or opening of any kind, but one by one he found exits blocked with heavy crates or entirely missing. Too late he was discovering that one of the other significant differences this ship had compared to the real one was a downright military level of fortification. A worker saw him slip from one room to another, and the voices called out for help, gathering more eyes to search for him. He climbed the wall and skittered across the ceiling, his heart pounding in his chest as thumping footsteps and shouting voices drew closer. They were coming from all sides.

  At last he found a small conduit, a hole through the wall to allow tubes and pipes through. He squeezed inside and found himself in a deep, dark recess that ran along the spine of the ship. More than once he’d heard Nita curse the idiot who’d designed such a feature, something that was utterly inaccessible without practically disassembling one of the ship’s interior walls. Here he would be safe, at least for a while.

  He held perfectly still and listened, his ears pivoting to follow the heavy boots on either side of the recess. Then came a new sound. The trembling tap of tiny claws.

  Wink turned. The far side of the recess darkened. Spidery fingers scratched at the opening, and finally the ship’s inspector squeezed through. His nostrils flared and he chattered a low threat.

  Wink narrowed his eye and backed toward the exit, but the hall was packed with workers now. He took a deep breath and tapped on the nearby pipe.

  You fought Wink. You got what you deserved.

  #

  “Get to the ship! Get to the ship!” Gunner called to Digger. “I’ll hold them off, you just get the ship headed in this direction!”

  Digger didn’t waste his breath arguing. He simply dashed for the ship. Bursts of soil erupted around him as poorly aimed shots from the guards’ rifles struck the dirt. Gunner turned to find no less than a half-dozen guards cresting the edge of the crater, rifles ready. They may as well have been lined up in a shooting gallery. He raised his pistol and emptied its remaining shots, each one striking a guard.

  When his gun was empty he turned and sprinted for the ship, his hands automatically fishing a fully loaded cylinder from his pocket and swapping it for the emptied one. A bullet struck the ground just ahead of one of his feet, then another bit into his thigh. He stumbled but pushed through the pain, pausing only long enough to fire a few more shots and force the guards into cover.

  Digger was quick on his feet, already on his way up the ship’s ladder. Gunner moved as swiftly as he could after him and fired periodically to keep the guards searching for cover.

  The dead, gnarled trees to which they had moored their stolen ship pulled free from the ground as Digger pushed the propellers to their maximum. Digger was not nearly the pilot he might be, almost driving the gondola into the ground in his attempts to get the ship moving. This, at least, ensured the rope ladder was still dragging along the ground. Gunner grabbed hold and grunted in pain. The sudden shift in direction as the ship yanked him into the air came just short of wrenching his arm from its socket. He held firm and pulled himself up rung after rung until he was inside.

  Digger spun the wheel sharply starboard, causing the gondola to swing wide. Gunner stumbled to the wall and barked into the speaking tube.

  “Head for the shipyard!” he ordered.

  “But they’re shooting at us!”

  “I don’t care. I’ve got a crewmember on that ship and we do not leave anyone behind!”

  #

  Dark blood dripped freely down Alabaster’s arm, but the rush of the moment pushed the pain far to the back of his mind. Work
ers now lined the hallway ahead shoulder to shoulder, all of them clustered around a small opening where pipes emerged from the wall. The sound of raw chaos poured from within. The creatures screeched and chattered, thumping, clawing, and howling as an unseen battle raged between the two inspectors.

  “What is going on here?” Alabaster demanded.

  “The ship’s inspector is in there, tearing up the other inspector,” said a worker.

  “Then fortune smiles on us that we found so rare and devoted an inspector,” Alabaster said.

  “Fortune nothing. We paid through the nose for this inspector. First of a new batch. Something about picking out the most territorial ones. I know, because I was the one who had to go pick it up, and the damn thing nearly bit my ear off,” the worker explained. “Hey… Hey, you’re bleeding pretty bad.”

  “Bah! Pain and injury are secondary to the task at hand. Are men guarding both entrances to this pipeway?”

  “Yes, we’ve got men on both sides.”

  “Excellent.” He raised his voice. “When the enemy inspector emerges, capture it and deliver it to me!”

  “Why don’t we just kill it?”

  “Oh, we shall, but why kill something in the belly of a ship when its death can be put to so much better use. This is a shipyard. You must have a megaphone. Something to make yourself heard from one side of this wretched place to the other.”

  “Sure. The supervisor is always bellowing into it.”

  “Get it, and meet me on the deck.”

  Voices roared on the other side of the wall. Alabaster dashed for the end of the hall and rounded the turn to find the workers on the other side of the conduit struggling with a maddened aye-aye. The thing was badly scratched and scraped, one eye wide and wild and the other hidden behind an askew patch. The other inspector, brutally scratched across its face and arms but still spoiling for a fight, held tight to the pipes and chattered at the workers and its opponent.

  Alabaster shouldered his way through the crowd and snatched Wink. He thumped the ailing creature hard against the wall and left him dazed, then continued with long, confident strides toward the ladder to the top deck.