by Joseph Lallo
“It’s beautiful. Your pa makes these, right?” Lil said, accepting it. “You told me he makes music boxes.”
“He does, but this one was made by my grandfather.”
“I heard a bit about him.”
“They say I take after him. This was a secret of his. See, he made his share of music boxes, but he got started making clocks. And this? This is both.”
“This is a clock?” she said.
“It is. There’s a trick to reading it. The center dancer stops with its toe pointed in the direction of the hour once per revolution. The other dancer stops and does a turn in the minute position.”
“Well ain’t that fancy…”
“Do you know anything about clocks?”
“Only that they cost an arm and a leg, and they can’t hardly take a bump without bustin’.”
“Well, a clock with just an hour hand and a minute hand is called a ‘simple movement.’ Each thing beyond that is called a ‘complication.’”
She handed the box to Lil. “When my father inherited it, it didn’t work. He and I took it apart to understand it, but for nearly a year we couldn’t get it to work. Eventually, though, we figured it out and it sprang to life.”
Lil nodded. “You done a fine job. I ain’t sure why you’re tellin’ me all this though.”
Before Nita could speak, a new figure darkened the doorway. It was Captain Mack.
“Nita,” he called.
She turned. “Did they come to a decision?”
“They did,” he said.
“What did they say?”
“They accepted our proposal. Catch Lil up and then we’ve got to get moving. We’ve missed three shipments already, and I don’t want to miss a fourth.” He marched away.
“What’s going to happen?” Lil asked.
“The Wind Breaker crew will remain honorary citizens of Caldera, but the Wind Breaker itself is no longer welcome over the skies of Tellahn. We’ll set up an airfield on the most southerly island, Mahnev. That shall serve as the gateway for the rest of the islands, and you’ll travel while you are here as we do, by boat.”
“We’ll still be allowed to do trade and all that?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “However, in order to be certain that a ship can be trusted, in order to remain in port and conduct business, even the Wind Breaker will require an official Calderan liaison aboard to vouch for their intentions.”
Lil nodded. “And… um…”
“You don’t know what a liaison is.”
“Not as such.”
“It will be an official representative of the Calderan government.”
“We ain’t gonna have a stuffy load of a government types weighing us down, are we?”
Nita crossed her arms. “I’ve always pulled my own weight before, haven’t I?”
“It’s you?”
“Who else? Have you met a single other person in your time here that would tolerate a single day on the Wind Breaker?”
“But you had—”
“I know. I had plenty of reasons to leave last time. I had a home, a job, and a life to think about.”
“Not to mention you were supposed to be safe here.”
“Well obviously trouble follows me around, doesn’t it? And it’s pretty clear that the job I did for the Wind Breaker was a little harder to find a replacement for.”
“What are we waiting for then?” Lil said eagerly.
“We weren’t quite through here,” Nita said.
Nita sat in the seat beside Lil. The deckhand glanced at the chair and began to stand, but Nita stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“I’ll tell you what that music box taught me. Complications can be hard. But if you’re willing to work on them, they can be truly beautiful.”
Lil looked Nita in the eye, then back to the chair. “Wait… you mean—”
Nita nodded.
“You sure?”
“I am.”
Lil gave her a punch in the shoulder.
“Ow! Careful, I just got out of the sling a few days ago,” Nita said.
“That’s for takin’ so long!”
“I know, I know.” Nita shut the music box and took it from her. “I’ve got to pack some things and get changed.”
“Yep!” Lil said, hugging her tight. “And then it’s back home…”
#
The crew gathered together in the freshly repaired ship, Nita once again suited up for service. The whole of the crew was gathered on the main deck, awaiting a bit of predeparture instructions. It was the first time in quite a while that the ship had not only been reunited with its armory officer and senior inspector, but also its briefly retired engineer. What’s more, there was something rarer still—a trio of passengers.
“Donald, Kent! And Dr. Prist,” Nita said, stepping up to the Well Diggers. “Where have you been? I’d heard you were a part of the rescue, but I’ve not seen you since you arrived.”
Dr. Prist adjusted her hair, as though the mere question had brought with it a dash of the chaos of her arrival here. “It is rather a long story, Ms. Graus.”
“Turns out, folks around here don’t like people showing up unannounced,” Kent said.
“But they do like people that they ain’t seen before. At least, they like starin’ at ’em,” Donald said.
“Between being locked up and being ‘honored’ with dinners and such, I was starting to feel like a fish in a bowl. We’ll have to tell you about it once we get on our way,” said Dr. Prist.
“There will certainly be time enough for it,” Nita said.
“Everybody, pull tight and listen up,” Captain Mack called, stepping up to the helm. “We’re loaded down for the return, more crew and passengers than we’ve ever had before, so I want everyone to know their parts.”
Dr. Prist raised her hand. “Before we start, Captain West, may I ask where those of us who are not standard members of the crew might be staying during the journey?”
“Wherever you can find room. We’ll shuffle a bit to try to keep things proper, what with the civilians and fellas and ladies and it not bein’ civil to mix people who ain’t too familiar, but we ain’t a ferry or a pleasure ship. Ain’t much space to spare.”
He cleared his throat. “By now you all ought to know it, but it seems we ain’t got but one talent on this ship, and that’s findin’ new folks who mean us harm. Time was I might curse Mayor Ebonwhite under my breath, but he didn’t pay us any mind. Nowadays we got him and his kin makin’ things miserable, then this half-wit Alabaster. Them two alone would be a handful, but now it seems there’s another fella, Tusk, that we need to be on the watch for. And this fella, he ain’t like the others. He ain’t willin’ to show his face and take his medicine like Alabaster, and he ain’t willin’ to keep it civil and businesslike the way Ebonwhite does. This is a man lookin’ to wipe us out, and worse, to wipe out anyone who ain’t happy to play a part in the little game he’s been playin’ since who knows when.
“Now, I ain’t a violent man. Trouble finds me nice and easy, so I ain’t never been one to go lookin’ for it. But this man, he ain’t the sort to leave to his own devices. He’s a man who needs to be dealt with.”
“You sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’, Cap’n?” Coop said.
“What I’m sayin’ is from now until Tusk is either under the ground or in a cage, the Wind Breaker is at war. I spent the last few days in that hole they stuck Alabaster in, up near Lo, and me and the madman have been havin’ some nice, long chats. We got a few things in our favor. First, Tusk ain’t got no reason to believe we’re still alive. He ain’t got no reason to believe we’re still in good with the Calderans, and he ain’t got no reason to think we’re comin’ for him. But we are alive. The Calderans do have our back. And the only folk angrier with him than Nita’s people are, are the people here on this deck.
“This ain’t gonna be pretty. It ain’t gonna be clean. But
it’s gotta be done, and it’s gotta be done quick. When we get back to Rim, we’re taking the fight to Tusk. We’re going to show him what happens when a fella thinks he can hurt the people we call friends. And when the rest of the fellas who want us dead see what becomes of him, they’ll be thinkin’ twice about crossin’ us.”
He removed a cigar from a tin and lit it. After a long, luxurious puff, he spoke again. “That sound about right to you?”
The crew roared in unanimous approval.
“Good. Then let’s get movin’. Once I get my ire up, I ain’t a patient man…”
From The Author
Thank you for reading! If you liked this story, or perhaps if you found it lacking, I’d love to hear from you. Below are links to some of the places you can find me online. For free stories and important updates, join my newsletter.
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Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:
The Book of Deacon Series:
Book 1: The Book of Deacon
Book 2: The Great Convergence
Book 3: The Battle of Verril
Book 4: The D’Karon Apprentice
Other stories in the same setting:
Jade
The Rise of the Red Shadow
The Redemption of Desmeres
The Big Sigma Series:
Book 1: Bypass Gemini
Book 2: Unstable Prototypes
Book 3: Artificial Evolution
Book 4: Temporal Contingency
The Free-Wrench Series:
Book 1: Free-Wrench
Book 2: Skykeep
Book 3: Ichor Well
Collections:
The Book of Deacon Anthology
The Big Sigma Collection: Volume 1
NaNoWriMo Projects:
The Other Eight
Other Stories:
Between
Fallen Empire: Rogue Derelict