Chapter 6
Only three days had passed on the Wind Breaker, but to look at Lester one would have imagined it had been months. Coal dust had worked its way into the fine lines in his paper-white face, seeming to make a lifetime of wrinkles appear overnight. And then there was the matter of his clothes.
“I honestly don’t understand how you can stand to dress in this way,” Lester muttered, tugging with blistered fingers at the sleeves of an ill-fitting white shirt.
He was dressed in one of Coop’s outfits, which was a shade too broad in the shoulder and hip and a few inches too short for Lester; but as there was nothing in the fug person’s wardrobe that would stand up to more than a few hours of proper work, the borrowed clothes were the only option.
Lester gasped like the fish out of water he was and tugged a piece of rag from his pocket to mop his brow. Most of his time had been spent in the boiler room, shoveling coal, cleaning soot from this or that, and watching gauges dance between green and red.
“I don’t know why the only clothes you brought were them fancy things. If that was the right sort of thing to wear up here, we’d all be wearing it.”
“Regardless of the suitability of my clothes, you people wear white shirts and work with coal! Surely you would be better served by a black wardrobe.”
“Cap’n likes us to look snappy. Black’s for funerals. And once you’re used to it, getting the coal out of the shirts ain’t so bad. But we’re supposed to be shoveling, not flapping our jaws about laundry.”
“Would you please give me a moment to catch my breath before you begin to crack the whip yet again, sir?!” he snapped.
“How come you need so much time to catch your breath?”
“Because of the altitude, sir. I’ve told you repeatedly.”
“We ain’t that high up. Barely above the fug.”
“Still a good deal higher than I’d ever hoped to be, thank you very much.”
Coop, as had been the case for the duration of his unwilling partnership with Lester, picked up the slack.
“Couple things, Lester,” he said between shovelfuls into the firebox, “first, if you folk would be a little looser with the burn-slow, there wouldn’t be half as much shoveling.”
“A point which I believe we are endeavoring to address with this journey.”
“And second, how the heck did you get mixed up in this? That Digger fella at least seems to have sort of a stake in this mess, and seems kind of decent. You’re about as ‘fug’ a fella as I ever met.”
“I imagine that was intended as an insult.”
“Only if acting like the rest of these folk is the sort of thing you take for a slight.”
“As it happens, I have a tremendous amount invested in this venture. The sum total of my remaining wealth in fact.”
“You put money up for this?”
“Yes. Unlike the lawless skies, down in the fug we cannot simply steal everything we want. The vast majority of the equipment that has made this venture possible has come at my own personal expense.”
“So you’re only in it for the money? That ain’t exactly heroic.”
“And I suppose your motives are saintly?”
“Heck no, but we ain’t talking about me, we’re talking about you.”
“Yes, sir. My motives are monetary. Do you have any idea why the fug folk you think of, when you can be troubled to think at all, are referred to by us as ‘the industry’?”
“I reckon that’s just the name for them. You’re the Well Diggers, they’re the industry.”
“No. It isn’t so tightly organized as that. The simple fact is, since so little grows beneath the fug, and there are so few of us in total, anyone with any power at all derives it directly from whatever industry they run. Mayor Ebonwhite may have some symbolic political power, but what truly fuels his influence is the width and breadth of his business dealings. He has his fingers in everything from shipping to manufacturing, and his brothers are half owners and operators of South Pyre.”
“And you want to be just like them folk, do you?”
“What I want is for my time and efforts to bear fruit. I have no love for the industry. Nor, I suspect, do the individual members of that loose-knit group have any love for one another. If I’m being completely honest, my ideal outcome isn’t to return to them and join their ranks, but to rise to a suitable level of success in spite of them, such that I can rub it in their faces.”
Coop checked the temperature gauge.
“That’ll about do it. Lucky it took you so long to catch your breath, you were still chasing after it when the job got done.”
“Certain hands are better suited to certain tasks.”
“If that means you’re willing to admit you’re lousy at shoveling, then I’ll agree.”
“Shoveling is not a skill I’ve cultivated. Shoveling is not, I would contend, a skill at all.”
“Then explain how you’re lousy at it and I ain’t.”
“In my long life I’ve never once had to shovel before, and I would say that is proof of a life well lived.”
“I say if you’d shoveled before, you probably wouldn’t be so lousy at it now. And how long a life have you had anyway? You don’t seem that old.”
“I’m seventy-nine.”
Coop took a step back. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Not at all. I celebrated my seventy-ninth birthday a few days before the circumstances that placed me near The Thicket, in fact.”
“I take it back then, you’re a pretty decent hand at a shovel for a man at death’s door.”
“I’m by no means at death’s door… You really don’t know anything about us in the fug, do you?”
“Old is old, what’s the fug got to do with it?”
“Fug folk are profoundly long lived, by surface standards. I’m considered rather young within my circle. Most of my associates are over a hundred years old. In fact, most fug folk are precisely one hundred forty-nine, six months, and I believe twelve days old.”
“… I can’t quite wrap my head around that.”
“It was at that time that the ‘calamity’ that immersed most of Rim in fug occurred.”
“So you folk all sort of crawled up out of whatever hole it came out of?”
“Crawled out of… you are so penetratingly dim I honestly cannot distinguish sarcasm from legitimate ignorance.”
“… So you folk didn’t crawl out of a hole.”
“No, we didn’t crawl out of a hole! All first-generation fug folk, of whom the vast majority still live today, began their lives as surface dwellers. The fug literally made us what we are. It altered our complexion and physique, and for many enhanced our intellect, but it also cost us nearly all of our women. Coupled with the fact most of the women who remain seem unable to bear children, the second generation, of which I am a part, is much smaller.”
“That’s wild,” Coop said. “Kind of makes me wonder why the fuggers are all so bent on making us pay through the teeth for everything. Them having been us before all this.”
“We choose not to dwell on the shameful fact of our ancestral status as former members of your race.”
“Still, you folk have a lot more to you than I reckoned.”
“Oh. What did you ‘reckon’ there was to us?”
“Bunch of pale folk who like to keep the rest of us on a nice short leash.”
“A jaundiced assessment.”
“A what now?”
Any attempted vocabulary lesson that might have followed was interrupted by the captain’s voice echoing through the speaking tube.
“We’re just about three hours from that academy of yours, Lester. If you were planning on being gussied up in your finery to entice that chemist of yours away from her gilded cage, now’s the time to get to it,” said Captain Mack.
Lester threw the shovel down and marched for the door. “At last this interminable journey is at least nearing its midpoint.”
“Hey now, Lester
, you pick that shovel up and hang it proper,” Coop said.
“But your captain just said—”
“Cap’n said we got three hours. I don’t reckon it takes you that long to tie a tie and all that. You ain’t never going to learn to use a shovel proper if you don’t treat it right.”
Lester sneered. “You are enjoying this, aren’t you? Finally finding yourself in a position to make demands on a fug person as opposed to the other way around.”
“I’m just trying to teach you to be a proper deckhand. It don’t make no difference to me what else you reckon I’m up to. I ain’t got time to plot and plan and be all sneaky like when I’m feeling ornery. You’ll know when I’m sore with you because you’ll catch another couple of knuckles to the chin. Now hang up the shovel, and then you can put on that snappy suit of yours and go out courting chemists.”
Lester stooped over and snatched the shovel from the ground, hanging it with exaggerated care on the hook beside the door. “There. Does that meet with your satisfaction?”
“Yep.”
The fug person muttered under his breath and stalked away.
“Make sure you hang that shirt and them trousers up too!” Coop called after him before placing his own shovel on its hook.
#
A few minutes prior to reaching the location the Well Diggers claimed they would find the academy, Captain Mack took the ship down into the fug and the crew gathered on the main deck. Lester was the last to arrive, dressed once more in an outfit better suited to viewing the premiere of an opera than an act of espionage. Captain Mack tightened his filter mask a bit and glanced at his temporary crewmember.
“Lester, come up here,” he said.
The fug man reluctantly climbed the short flight of steps that separated the helm from the rest of the main deck. “Yes, Captain West?”
“You folk, and by that I mean the Well Diggers, seem to be thoughtful sorts, but seeing as how much is on the line for this, you’ll excuse me if I feel obliged to double-check that proper plans have been made. You’ll be arriving on foot from outside. That the sort of thing they’re likely to allow?”
“I’ve actually spent some time here as a student, Captain. I’ve got papers indicating my identity, and they have a policy of allowing alumni to revisit the grounds as often as they desire.”
“And what’ll you tell them if they ask how you got here?”
“I shall inform them I have a personal valet who dropped me off and shall return at the appointed time to fetch me.”
“They liable to ask why you came wandering in out of the darkness instead of being dropped right at their door?”
“I shall tell them that my valet is an inept fool who cannot pilot the ship properly.”
“Try not to smile too much when you say that,” Captain Mack said. “I won’t ask you how you plan to convince the lady. A man’s entitled to his secrets of his wiles with the fairer sex. But once you convince Dr. Prist to join the cause, how will you get her back to the ship?”
“I’ll speak to her overseers and request that we be given the opportunity for a short constitutional, with myself as her chaperon.”
“… And on the off chance they don’t oblige the request of a stranger to wander off with the woman they’re keeping an eye on, what’s your backup plan?”
“I’ll instead suggest that they allow us to walk with an additional chaperon of their choosing, at which point you will incapacitate the chaperon and we will be on our way.”
Captain Mack considered his words. “Head on down to the gig room and stand in the gig. We’ll winch you down when we get close so you don’t have to scuff your fancy shoes climbing the ladder. Since it’s not for the unskilled, Coop here will do the mooring.”
Lester nodded to the captain and headed below decks. When he was out of sight, Captain Mack addressed his crew without looking.
“Gunner, get one of them fancy rifles of yours with the good sights. The fug being what it is, I don’t imagine they’ll be much good, but better than nothing. Keep an eye on the man. Coop, when you’re done mooring, give Lester time enough to get some distance between you, then shadow him. Out of sight to both him and anyone else. Confidant as he might be that they’ll let him take their prisoner, I’d feel safer with plans C and D in place when A and B fail on him.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Coop said.
“I had anticipated precisely that order, Captain, and I have just the rifle,” Gunner said.
He stepped to the railing and untied a few lashings that were holding a long case there. Inside the case was a rifle as long and thin as a javelin. A trio of thin struts ran from grip to tip, stiffening the barrel, which might otherwise sag under its own weight. At the base, in place of a common sight or even his typical complex optics, was something that looked like a full-size telescope. All around it were assorted gauges and calibration screws.
“If you’ve been finding the time to patch together abominations like that, I haven’t been keeping you busy enough,” Captain Mack said.
“The rifle itself is designed for long-range accuracy. I’ve got wind gauges and—”
“That doesn’t concern me, Gunner.”
“No, Captain, I imagine not, but the sights should concern you greatly. You see, it turns out Caldera makes some fine colored crystal. Through Nita, I commissioned a few sets of lenses in various colors—”
“If there’s a part of this that’s relevant, I would suggest you cut to it.”
“I found a lens that makes anything lit with green—which is to say almost everything lit with phlo-light—exceptionally visible. It should let me see things otherwise hidden by the fug in much greater detail.”
“You’ve made a special sight for the fug. Why couldn’t you start with that?”
“Because occasionally I find it worthwhile to illustrate my own ingenuity, since no one else seems obliged to.”
He clicked through a wheel of colored lenses at the front of the telescope and took aim. From the captain’s point of view, he was targeting a hazy green point at the very limits of visibility.
“What do you see?”
“Half-dozen buildings… ornamental wrought iron fence. Spikes at the top, but they look dull. Only about fifteen feet tall. Shouldn’t be a problem for Coop.”
“How many guards?”
“We’re approaching from the north. The main gate looks like it is at the center of the west fence. From the size, probably not more than two guards there. I’ve got what looks like a patrol walking along the courtyard in the center, and there is a small gate on this side with a guard. Possibly a matching one on the south wall.”
“Five guards at best guess?” Captain Mack said. “Not much of a defense. Wink!”
Yes, came the tapped reply from his hiding place among the rigging overhead.
“Any messages being tapped in or out that I should know about?”
No tapping.
“You let me know the moment you hear anything.”
I do that always.
He adjusted the wheel and flipped a lever to ease the ship toward the ground.
“See that you keep at it. Either Lester is doing a terrible job of helping us, or he’s doing an excellent job of pretending to be an idiot. Either way, I don’t want any surprises.”
#
Lester paced along the poorly maintained cobblestone rode toward the main entrance of the academy. He’d spent so much of his life within the cities of the fug, and traveling between them via low-altitude airship, that he’d forgotten there were roads between the cities. He mused briefly on the number of artifacts from the precalamity times that might still find use on occasion, but there was little time for such idle thought. He had a task to do.
The gate ahead was an elegant, sculpted affair. An arch above it had Fadewell Academy emblazoned in gold. Pipes ran near the top of the fence, each feeding a phlo-light made to resemble an oil lamp.
“It is a fine thing to return to proper society,” he said with
a smile.
He straightened his bow tie and doffed his bowler hat to the two grunts in academy attire standing to either side of the gate.
“Hello, gentleman!” Lester said, popping his hat back on. “At long last, Lester Clear has returned to the hallowed grounds of his alma mater.”
Each grunt looked him over, thoroughly unimpressed.
“You been in a fight, sir?” asked the taller of the two.
Lester felt his bruised cheek. “Ah… A bit of clumsiness on my part. Stumbled into a doorjamb. May I enter and walk the grounds? Visit a few of my old professors?”
“You walk here to do that?” asked the second guard.
“No, heavens no. I came by airship. Personal airship, might I add. The blasted fool at the helm almost killed us trying to set down. We’re way off in the trees.”
“We didn’t see no lights.”
“No… no you wouldn’t have. There’s a problem with the lights on the whole ship. Hence the bruise you see. That’s why I stumbled. Can’t see a bloody thing.”
A grin flickered across his face. That was a rather clever bit of improvisation. Something to be proud of.
“You have your student card?” asked the shorter guard.
“Of course. I carry it with pride, wherever I go.”
He handed over the card. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow, despite the icy cold. It was absurd, obviously. He was an alumnus of this fine establishment. Yet he felt oddly as though his intentions would somehow be revealed by close scrutiny of the card itself. This life of subterfuge was not for him. Better to return to administration just as soon as the ichor well was established and operational.
“Lester Clear,” read the first guard.
“Yes, as I said.”
The second guard fumbled in the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a medium-size book that in his hands seemed like it was made for a child. He thumbed through the pages, looking over the lists of names and dates within.
“Here, yeah. Lester Clear. Didn’t graduate.”
“But I did attend. The finest few months of my life.”
The grunts peered at him, long and hard. It was possible this was going to be more difficult than he had imagined.
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