by Gene Wolfe
"We wish victory. None but cowards count life more high." Maytera Mint started to speak, but Oosik silenced her with a gesture. "I am confident General Rimah is an able officer. You're not the sort to tolerate anything less. There is a gulf, however, between an able officer and an exceptional leader. The ranks sense it at once, and the public almost as quickly. I will not ask if you care about your troops. We're too close for that, you and I, so close I can hear my own voice in everything you've said. You long for victory, and you know, as I do, that it would be more probable if you were in command of your troops. Wouldn't you agree that for any other-"
Potto interrupted. "A subject of the Rani's."
"That for another citizen of your city," Oosik continued, "to prevent you from resuming your place would be treason? It is not an idle question."
"You think someone does this? I wish to know."
"Let me." Maytera Mint's small, not uncomely face shone with energy and resolve. "You want to fight me, Siyuf, because of what you've heard about me. I don't want to fight you, and in fact it's the last thing I want. I want peace. I want to end this foolish fighting and let everybody in our city and yours go back to their proper lives. But it's been clear ever since your spies tried to arrest us that as long as you have our Caldé there can be no peace. I'm going to assume you understand that, because if you don't there's no use talking."
"I am captive also." Siyuf touched her chest.
"Exactly! You've saved me a lot of time. We've got you, but in a very important way we don't want you, since your city will fight to get you back. Clearly the sensible thing is to exchange you for our Caldé. Peace would be possible then, but if we still couldn't make peace, you and I would be fighting each other, which is what you want. Now if-"
Siyuf made a quick motion, the gesture of one accustomed to instant obedience. "I have pledged to your Sand that I will free Incus the holy man and Marble. She is your friend?"
"Yes, she is." Maytera Mint glanced at Oosik, but he did not speak. "You cheated Sergeant Sand and Corporal Hammerstone. You know you did. You knew those prisoners were already on your airship when you promised to let them go."
"Over this we fight a duel, perhaps, if I am free. It may still be so. I did not know, Mint. If you have deal with Saba and her airship as I, you know that what is to be at shadeup may not be until midday, or not this day or the next. Let me go. I get them again and free them. Caldé Silk also."
For a second or two Maytera Mint studied her with pursed lips. "All right, I'll accept that. I apologize."
Potto tittered.
"But your airship doesn't seem to have reached Trivigaunte yet. Does that bother you?"
Siyuf shook her head. "Tonight, or I think the morning."
Oosik rumbled, "Suppose I were to say tomorrow afternoon, Generalissimo. Your knowledge, I contend, is not so deep as you pretend. Tomorrow afternoon!"
Siyuf shrugged. "If you say. Perhaps."
"In that case I proffer a further supposition. Not before shadelow next Phaesday. What would you say to that?"
"That you are a fool. The airship could be here once more in such a time."
"Just so." Oosik wound his white-tipped mustache about his finger. "We have contacted Trivigaunte by glass, Generalissimo. We have spoken to your Minister of War. We have explained how things stand here, and offered to exchange you for Caldé Silk."
"They won't," Newt declared. "Won't do it or even talk about it, by Scylla! We invite your comments."
"I offer what is better. Let me speak with her."
Potto roared, slapping his thigh. "This is too, too rich! My dear young General, you're not even smiling. How do you do it?" He turned back to Siyuf, speaking across the empty chair. "You already have, and it didn't help a bit."
"I have not. Abanja for me, perhaps."
Maytera Mint said, "We think it's politics. By we I mean Generalissimo Oosik and I. The internal politics of your city. We'd like confirmation of that, and some suggestions about what to do about it."
"If this you say is true…" Siyuf shrugged again.
Oosik muttered, "Every city has its feuds, Generalissimo."
"Mine also. Our War Minister, you do not say her name. This is Ljam? A scar here?" Siyuf touched her upper lip.
Newt and Maytera Mint nodded.
"This is not possible. My city have politics, as your generalissimo say. Feuds, plottings, hatreds. Of these very many. But Ljam is with me most near. If I fail here she fail also. You understand? Lose her ministry, perhaps her head."
Oosik regarded Siyuf through slitted eyes. "You're saying it is impossible for her to betray you, Generalissimo?"
"She cannot unless she is betray herself!"
Potto sang, "I told you! I told you!"
"He thinks your airship's wrecked, or it's gone off course somehow." Maytera Mint looked somber. "Naturally they won't say so, and Generalissimo Oosik and I thought it was more likely they were playing some game, though Councillor Potto received a report implying it's gone. Now it seems he must be right. This is truly unfortunate."
"But we're going to let you go anyhow," Potto told Siyuf. "Isn't that nice of us?" He bounced from his chair and went to the door calling, "You can send them in!"
It was opened by a soldier; and Violet and a second Siyuf entered, Violet with her arm linked with the second Siyuf's. She stared at the first in open-mouthed amazement.
"You'll have to go now, my dear young strumpet," Potto told her. "We don't want you, though I'm sure many do. Have a seat, Generalissimo. I'll be with you in a half a moment."
"I am to sit beside this bio?" the second Siyuf inquired. "This I do not like. You say you send me to my horde, I think. When is it you do this?"
"You'll escape," Newt explained to the first Siyuf. "Or rather, she will."
"Too much warlockery for me." Hadale dropped into one of the cockpit's black-leather seats. "Too much in your city, and too much on our airship now that you're here. People at home say you're all warlocks, but I discounted it. I should have tripled everything. You're a warlock, Caldé, and I'd call you the chief warlock if I hadn't met the old man who sat between our generalissimo and General Saba."
"She refers to His Cognizance," Silk told Hyacinth; awed and delighted, he tried to stare at everything at once. "Like a conservatory…"
Oreb croaked, "Bad thing" as Tick squirmed in Hyacinth's grasp. "Add word, dew!"
"Three engines gone." Hadad peered morosely through the nearest rectangle of glass at the parting clouds and the rocky sand scape that they revealed. "What do you want? Surrender? I'll shoot you first and take my chances with the desert."
"Then we don't want it," Hyacinth declared.
"We don't in any case," Silk said, "and I'm no warlock; the truth is that I'm hardly an augur any more-I certainly don't feel like one."
"General Saba told me the other day that you read about our advance in sheepguts. Do you deny it?"
"No, though it isn't true. Denying it would waste time, so you may believe it if you like. There are five engines still in operation. Is that enough to keep us in the air?"
The navigator looked up from her charts, then returned to them; Hadale pointed to the ceiling. "None are needed to keep us up, the gas does it. Are we going to lose all our engines?"
Silk considered. "I can't promise that. I hope so."
"You hope so."
"No shoot," Oreb advised Hadale nervously. "Good man."
"It was what I intended." For a moment, Silk allowed his eyes to feast on Hyacinth's loveliness. "The risk that gave me most concern was that Hyacinth might be killed as a result of what I was doing; I hoped it wouldn't happen, and I'm very glad it won't. I betrayed my god for her-I was horribly afraid that it would recoil on me, as such things do."
She brought his hand to the soft warmth of her thigh. "You betrayed the Outsider for me? I'd never ask you to do that."
Hadale turned to the pilot, "We've still got five?"
The pilot nodded. "Can't mak
e much headway against this wind with five, though, sir."
Hyacinth asked, "Aren't we going south anyway? Isn't the wind blowing us south to Trivigaunte? Somebody said something like that."
"It's blowing us south," Hadale told her bitterly, "but not to Trivigaunte. We turned east for about an hour before the first one quit."
"Veering north-northwest, sir," the pilot reported.
Having freed himself from Hyacinth's grasp, Tick stood on his hind legs to pat Hadale's knee. "Rust Milk, laddie. Milk bill take hit hall tight."
"He says you can trust my husband," Hyacinth interpreted. "He's right, too, and I don't think you ought to pay too much attention to what my husband says about betraying a god. He-oh, I don't know how to explain! He's forever blaming himself for the wrong things. He's sorry for holding me too tight when I wish he'd hold me tighter. See?"
"Your catachrest's an oracle of our goddess, so I have to trust him implicitly. Is that it?"
"I didn't say that." Hyacinth sat down. "I guess I would have, though, if I thought you'd believe it. Maybe it's right, and she isn't telling us."
"Hat's shoe!" Tick exclaimed.
Silk smiled. "I take it that General Saba's no longer in charge. Where is she?"
"In her bunk, with three troopers to watch her. I won't ask how you drove her mad. I'm sure you wouldn't tell me."
"I didn't." He leaned over the crescent-shaped instrument panel for a better view of the desert below. "I arranged for her to be possessed, that's all. You saw the same thing at our dinner. Are you in charge now? There's no one over you?"
"The War Minister. In a moment I'm going to have to report this situation to her."
"No talk," Oreb advised.
"By 'this situation' you mean-"
"Three engines out. I've told her about Saba turning east already. I had to. I was hoping you'd agree to repair the engines before I had to report them, too. That's why I let you come up here. Will you?"
"I can't." Silk took the seat next to Hyacinth's. "Nor would I if I could. We'd be back where we began, with Auk's people trying to seize control, and everyone-all of us, I mean-dying. I said I betrayed the Outsider because that was how I felt-"
"Wind's due west now, sir," the pilot reported.
"Course?"
"East by south, sir. We might try dropping down."
"Do it." Hadale considered. "A hundred and fifty cubits." She turned back to Silk. "You were afraid we'd crash. We may. It's dangerous to fly that low in weather as windy as this. If a downdraft catches us, we could be finished. But the wind won't be as strong down there."
Hyacinth gasped, and Silk said, "I can feel the airship descend. I rode in a moving room once that felt like this."
"You want to go east. That was how you had General Saba steering us."
He nodded, and smiled again. "To Mainframe. Auk wants to carry out the Plan of Pas, and the Outsider wants it, too, which is why I felt I was betraying him when I did what I did to your engines. But letting Auk try to take your airship wouldn't have achieved anything, and this was the only way I could think of to prevent him."
"So now that we don't have enough engines to fight the wind, you're working your magic on that."
Silk shook his head. "I can't. All that I can do is pray, which isn't magic at all, but begging. I've been doing it, and perhaps I've been heard."
He drew a deep breath. "You want your engines back in operation, Major. You want to preserve this airship, and to deliver me to your superiors in Trivigaunte; the rest of your prisoners don't matter greatly, as you must know. I do."
Slowly, Hadale nodded.
"We can do all that, if only you'll cooperate. Take us to Mainframe, as Pas commands and the Outsider wishes. Auk and his people can leave the whorl and thus begin carrying out the Plan. Hyacinth and I will return-"
"Shut up!" Hadale cocked her head, listening.
The pilot said, "Number seven's quit, sir." The absence of all emotion in her voice conveyed what she felt.
"Take her up fast. Just below the cloud cover."
Hyacinth asked Silk, "Won't the wind be stronger there?"
Hadale was on her feet, scanning the desert below. "A lot stronger, but I'm going to set her down and try to fix the engines. Even if we can't, we won't be blowing farther from Trivigaunte. We want a big level stretch to land on, and an oasis, if we can find one."
"No land!" Oreb advised sharply; Hyacinth began, "If you'll go to Mainframe like he-"
Hadale whirled. "He can't fix them. He admits it."
Silk had risen, too; almost whispering, he said, "You must have faith, Major."
"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 Caldé 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."