Nimbus: A Steampunk Novel (Part One)

by B.J. Keeton

  “Spare anything for an old cripple?” The woman was leaning against the wall to his left, and Rucca fingered the joystick on his wheelchair so that he could face her. He looked at her and saw that, yes, she was indeed a cripple. She wasn’t one of the liars who claimed to have an internal—and thus unverifiable—ailment. Anyone who looked at her could see that she had no legs.

  Well, that wasn’t quite it. She didn’t have a right leg, but the left one extended as far as the knee.

  Rucca’s jaw clenched. He liked most of the bums around Cloud Nine. They were, surprisingly, good people for the most part, old sailors who’d been injured by the fog or some similar sob story. Crazy Murdoch down by the port could spin a yarn about his days sailing the Skyline that would just about make Rucca piss his pants from laughing so hard. In payment, Rucca would give Crazy Murdoch whatever change he had in his pockets. It was a fair trade. Tit for tat.

  The cripple in front of him, however, had no tat for which he could barter. She was just begging. Actually bumming. And worst of all, she was using her disability to try and make people feel sorry for her. With Rucca, her bumming took on an additional layer: she was playing on his empathy as a fellow cripple.

  Except that Demetrius Rucca wasn’t crippled. He might not be able to walk, but he was no less capable than any man or woman on Cloud Nine. And for this dirty bum in front of him to act like he was…

  Well, she had to be taught a lesson.

  “Are you actually crippled?” Rucca asked her as kindly as he could muster.

  “Well, I ain’t got my legs no more, so I reckon I am.”

  “That is not what makes you a cripple,” Rucca said. He did not hide his malice. “Why are you here? Why this door?”

  “You the Prelate’s boy, right?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Has to do with everything,” said the bum. “You’re in a steamchair and your daddy’s the head honcho around here, isn’t he? I figure I might be able to stir up some feelings inside the prelate’s rich, cripple son. So what do you say, boy? Will you help a fellow cripple out a bit?” She held her gnarled hand toward him, obviously expecting him to drop some coin in it.

  “I told you,” he said. “I am not a cripple.” The old woman pulled her hand away and sat it palm down on the ground. She used it to brace herself against the wall. Following the hand closely with his eyes, Rucca twisted the joystick so that the wheels of his chair lined up perfectly with her fingers. He pushed the stick forward and felt the slightest of bumps when he ran over her fingers. “I do not want to see you around here again.” She started screaming as he rolled away, but he never looked back.

  Maybe now she would think twice before calling anyone else a cripple.

  His thoughts strayed from the bum and her insults as he made his way around the promenade. Even at midday, the central hub of Cloud Nine was bustling. Merchants hawked their wares from storefronts or kiosks, fighting each other with signs, displays, demos, and samples, each merchant just trying lighten some noble’s coin-purse.

  Rucca liked watching them work. It was honest work—most of the time. The Cloud Nine promenade was separated into three tiers, each one connecting to the others via spiral ramp. That suited Rucca just fine; his chair wasn’t terribly adept at staircases. Most of the time, though, he just stayed around the third tier, wheeling from shop to shop, talking with the merchants but never buying anything. Being the High Prelate’s son had few perks, but one of his favorites was not paying for anything. Ever.

  Aside from free merchandise and food, Rucca favored the highest tier on the promenade because it was the quietest. The folks who ran shops up here were the type who chose to let their merchandise speak for itself. If someone was browsing on Tier Three, then his or her tastes were a bit above petty sales pitches. The jewelry and silvercrafts sold on Tier Three were phenomenally expensive, and the restaurants and dining halls were equally exclusive.

  The second tier, though, wasn’t bad. Rucca liked it fairly well, too, because that was where the merchants were the most fun. They weren’t the uncultured people on the lowest level near the ports, but they weren’t the snooty yes-men who ran Tier Three, either.

  Rucca brought his wheelchair to a stop by the railing. He leaned forward and looked down, watching the people go about their days. He could hear Carlos’ voice somewhere below him trying to convince someone that “yes, that hat is the perfect color for your skin.” Rucca chuckled. He watched a burly man he didn’t know enter a jewelry shop, then leave rather quickly. The man then went into a water outlet and came out a short while later with a medium jug of distilled drinking water.

  Disgusting.

  Rucca refused to drink distilled water. He only drank purified extraction water, not the murky mess they passed off as the real thing in those outlets. Even on Cloud Nine, good water was a luxury not everyone could afford. Rucca figured that was another of the few perks of being the High Prelate’s son.

  Bored of people-watching, the steam-powered wheelchair whirred around Tier Three. There were a lot of bums around today, and even though most of them weren’t bothering people, they were lowering the class of the tier by just being around. He’d have to discuss that with his father soon.

  As he rolled down from Tier Three, nothing interesting was happening on Tier Two, either. Just the same old shopping that happened every day. He turned his chair toward Carlos’ shop and waved at the owner as he passed, catching snippets of the conversation he had started hearing up above.

  “That’s just lovely, my dear. No, no, I don’t think the color would remind anyone of the fog.”

  Carlos was obviously very busy, so Rucca rolled onward. He’d come back and talk later, see if there was any gossip he needed to hear. As he passed the guard who was stationed between Tiers One and Two, Rucca heard a clang as his chair puttered and died. He rolled to a stop right beside a uniformed templar—one of his dad’s soldiers.

  “Trouble, sir?” the templar asked him.

  “I think so, yes. Would you mind checking my chair?” It hurt Rucca to ask the man for help, but he didn’t have the authority to command a templar to do anything.

  The templar knelt beside Rucca, and said, “Looks like you threw a cog is all, sir. Won’t be but just a second.” The armored man spent a few moments messing with Rucca’s chair, and then stood back up. “Try her now, sir.”

  The engine whirred again, and the chair was in working order. “Thank you,” Rucca said. “Anything going on today, or is it blessedly slow watching the tiers?”

  The guard just laughed. “Your thrown cog is the most exciting thing that’s happened in hours. There aren’t too many drunks trying to get into the other tiers yet, but that’ll change. Always does.”

  “It does indeed,” Rucca agreed. “Do you happen to know how many ships are in port right now?”

  “I don’t, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no worry,” Rucca said. “I’ll go check it out for myself.” He thumbed his joystick and began to move forward. Without turning the chair around, he shouted back to the templar, “And thank you for fixing my cog!”

  ***

  The templar had been right. Nothing was going on today, even all the way down on Tier One. Rucca couldn’t find any fights worth watching or arguments worth listening to, so he found himself a nice porthole and parked his chair beside it.

  Fights and arguments were fickle entertainment, and Rucca knew it. However, there was one thing he could always count on to pass the hours: watching the airships dock at the skyport. Rucca’s first memory was of airships, a mobile turning above his crib as an infant. Ever since then, he had found solace in their comings and goings.

  Today, though, that solace was hard to come by. He had humiliated his servant and broken a cripple’s fingers, and he didn’t regret either action. Milton and the crippled bum had deserved what they got, and Rucca had quite enjoyed teaching them their lessons, but for some reason it hadn’t qui
te silenced the restlessness in Rucca’s spirits. The airships were equally unhelpful, which almost troubled him.

  “Two today, Demetrius. Really? And it’s not even mid-afternoon. I’m impressed.” The voice that came from behind Rucca was gruff and patronizing in a way that only a father could manage. Rucca twisted the joystick on his chair and faced his father.

  Cornelius Rucca, High Prelate of the Assembled Court, stood twice Demetrius’ effective height, thanks to the younger man’s wheelchair. His square jaw and perfect posture only enhanced the aura of power that radiated off him.

  “Eh,” Demetrius responded.

  “You forced Milton Hartselle to lap water out of your hand.”

  Demetrius said nothing.

  “I thought you liked Milton.”

  “He used my name when addressing me, Father. He had to be put in his place.”

  “His place is to serve you, Demetrius. Not to serve as your pet. And what about the beggar? Her screams interrupted a very important meeting I was having.” Cornelius widened his stance and folded his hands behind his back. “Imagine my surprise when I hear what had happened to cause such a disturbance.”

  “Hearsay.”

  “Do you deny it?”

  “Oh, no, Father. I broke the old bum’s hand. She called me a cripple.” He paused for a beat before repeating the final two words. “A. Cripple.”

  “Demetrius. Son. I don’t know how to break it to you, but…” Cornelius paused for emphasis, too. Even his silence was mocking. “You are a cripple.”

  Demetrius’ jaw clenched. “No, Father. I may not be able to walk, but I am not a cripple.”

  “I had so many hopes for you, Demetrius. So many dreams. And look where you are. Look what you are.”

  Demetrius turned his chair away from his father and faced the port again. “Your dreams, Father? What about mine?”

  The High Prelate walked over to stand beside his son, the metal greaves he wore clanging against the wrought iron deck. Each step caused a small shudder in Demetrius. He placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “Please don’t tell me we’re having this conversation again, Demetrius.”

  Demetrius’ response was simple: “I will have one.”

  “And someday the Dwellers will escape the Burrows and live above the fog, too. Wishful thinking is what keeps the world spinning around, son. Just don’t let it alter how you see reality.”

  “I will have one.”

  Cornelius’ hand tightened on his son’s shoulder. “No, Demetrius, you will not. You, I’m afraid, are a cripple. Don’t argue with me. You are. You are bound to that chair, and you know it. I don’t know a single airship captain in a chair, do you? Even a crewman?”

  Demetrius was silent. His eyes focused on the airship currently docking. It had enough hoses hanging from its bow that it looked like it was actually crawling through the clouds instead of flying. He focused on the airship and tried to ignore his father.

  “See?” Cornelius said. “You can’t think of one. Not even one.” The High Prelate sighed. “You will never fly one of those, Demetrius. Never. You need to move on and act like a grown man.”

  Demetrius just stared forward, watching the airship connect to the skyport’s docking arm. If he ignored his father long enough, maybe he would just leave.

  His father leaned down and put his lips close to Demetrius’ ear. “You will never fly one of those.” Then, he stood up and walked away, leaving Demetrius alone staring out the window.

  Chapter Three

  The Gangly Dirigible made excellent time, nearing Thunder’s Echo within two days of the last Hosing. During that trip, Jude and the other members of the crew passed time in various ways: people like Jude either read or talked with their friends; Roebuck and the other engineers gambled and smoked—and did very little else; Cal Reedy went around to all the rooms on the housing level, demanding bunk inspections and ensuring the place was still being kept tidy, all while pretending he wasn’t doing it out of boredom. The day before their arrival at Thunder’s Echo, there was an incident with the Shrew, in which he strangled another Hoser named Macintosh for looking at him the wrong way.

  “I’ll kill ya, ya bootlicker!” the Shrew had cried. His fingernails dug into Macintosh’s throat. “You give me that wry look now—I dare ya!”

  It took four people, including Reedy, to pry Macintosh out of the Shrew’s grasp. The Shrew was sent to the holding cell, and Macintosh was lying in the infirmary, threatening to have the Shrew sent to the Spire to be judged by the one of the magistrates of the Assembled Court.

  “He’s really fine,” Valencia told Jude later that day. “He’s just got a thing for Kathleen Burke and the more he hams it up, the more she stays in there, feeding him soup and acting like he’s a minute away from death. If he actually calls for a magistrate, I’ll shave my head and give it to the Shrew as a going-away present.”

  The next day, Reedy went through the halls informing everyone that the airship would dock at Thunder’s Echo that afternoon. Cheers rang throughout the corridor. It had been nearly four months since they’d docked at a skyport—one of the longest voyages anyone onboard could remember.

  Jude went up to the galley to grab a late breakfast. When he got there, he saw William Fritz sitting at a table by himself. His friend was struggling with a piece of rockbread, something so hard it nearly broke Jude’s teeth anytime he tried to eat it. Fritz smiled when he saw Jude, the hole on his left cheek appearing to narrow. The wound showed teeth and gums, and it caused Fritz to talk in a sort of wispy growl.

  Fritz had been in contact with the fog, but Jude had never asked him about it. Jude heard stories about people like Fritz down in Burrow 12. The people down there talked of Fritz’s kind—what most people insultingly called hobgoblins—as if they were cannibalistic beasts without speech or thought, or emotion. But Fritz was one of the nicest people Jude had ever known, and Jude was proud to call him a friend.

  “Want a bite?” Fritz asked, holding out the rockbread. His fingers, hands, and arms were also damaged. Muscle tissue and even bone was visible in several places. “I’m struggling just to get it down. I suppose I should stop before my teeth look as bad as the rest of me.”

  “I think I’ll pass on the bread,” said Jude. “Did you hear we’re supposed to reach Thunder’s Echo today?” Jude looked around at the available food: there was rockbread, molded fruit, or the Runs. “I think I’ll wait to eat until we get there.”

  Fritz shrugged. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “Roebuck said you were looking for me a few days ago. What have you been doing all this time?”

  “Ah, nothing,” said Fritz. He was older than Jude, but only by about five years. His wrinkled, damaged skin made him look decades older, though, and Fritz talked with about as much enthusiasm as an elderly man in a borderline coma. “The clouds just get to me sometimes, that’s all.” He looked off into a corner of the room, as if spotting the ghost of an old enemy. “That’s all.”

  Jude frowned. “Did you need something the other day?”

  “I was going to see if you had anything for my queasiness,” said Fritz. “I bought some ginger the last time we were at port, but I’d used it all up.”

  “Maybe someone will be selling some at Thunder’s Echo,” Jude said. “I’m sorry I don’t have any.”

  “It’s okay. I’m feeling better now.” Fritz’s eyes were still off in a corner. Through the hole in his left cheek, Jude could see that his teeth were clenched. After a long pause, Fritz ran his hand through his brown hair. Little clumps of hair fell to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was used to it.

  “You feeling okay?” Jude asked.

  “Yes, of course,” said Fritz. “Although, the little toe on my right foot is nearly gone.” He paused and smiled, but his eyes were dark. “The fog keeps eating long after it’s gone.”

  ***

  Thunder’s Echo may have been a small port, but it was one of the busiest Jude had eve
r seen. People bustled throughout the many bazaars and taverns in the city. Merchants called out to pedestrians and the streets were riddled with drunks, passed out from the night’s previous binges. While there were a few steam-powered carriages, most people were transported around on rickshaws pulled by some of the poorer civilians. Some of the crewmembers of the Gangly Dirigible sold their wages for money and put their copper pieces together to ride as a group to the nearest tavern. Others, like Jude and Fritz, saved their money and walked.

  Large towers and makeshift scaffoldings were erected throughout the skyport, some of them swaying uneasily in the light breeze. A very large clock tower stood at the center of the port, but the hands on the clock had stopped working and the glass covering its face was cracked. Thunder’s Echo was in poor condition, but it was nearly regal in comparison to Burrow 12. Jude liked to think that even the bums of the skyports were luckier than those stuck down in the Burrows.

  “You boys want to join us for a drink?” called Roebuck. He was part of the group pooling their money together for a carriage. He almost looked comical sitting on the edge of one of the carriage’s tiny windows.

  “I’ve got to go ship my wages back home,” Jude said.

  “What about you, Fritz?” asked Roebuck. The pipes on the carriage started spouting smoke. “Better decide fast, we’re leavin!”

  “I’m staying with Jude,” said Fritz.

  “Well, maybe we’ll see ya soon!” Roebuck shouted as the carriage puffed and shook down the poorly constructed roadway.

  Jude and Fritz left the airship hangar and headed toward the shipping lanes. Before they were far, Valencia caught up to them. She was also lugging her crate of water around. Without her wind-goggles strapped around her head, she looked pleasantly different, maybe even pretty.

  “Follow me,” she said. “I’ll take you to the shipper I always use here.”

  Behind them, they could hear Captain Schlocky yelling at some of the dockworkers as the filtered water was taken off the ship to be sold. Some of the water would be left onboard, to hydrate the crew and keep the steam engines running, but most would be sold at a premium and shipped to different ports across Nimbus. None of it, Jude knew from experience, reached the people in the Burrows.