“Hold on. I found where he keeps his booze,” Coop said.
“This is more important than alcohol, Coop.”
“It’s two-hunnerd-year-old Caer Agathi Special Reserve. Three whole bottles and most of another.”
“… Bring it along, but hurry up. I’ll meet you on deck.”
Gunner turned and headed for the door. Despite the cramped corridors and dim lights, he knew the ship well enough to navigate it with barely a glance up from the pages of the book he held before him. He tried to read quickly, skimming across the page to pluck out the useful information buried in self-aggrandizing and purple prose. Names and locations began to emerge, but most were meaningless to him.
When the fug had claimed the low-lying cities, it wiped away their names along with their people. He could look at an old map and see a hundred hamlets and towns with names he knew from the history books, but most of those places had since been renamed or utterly forgotten. One of the many things they’d liberated some months ago during their heist at a Fugtown warehouse had been a small stack of maps, but he’d not bothered to learn the names. Foolishly he’d believed his business within the fug was through. And even if he’d memorized the geography beneath the purple haze, the less he knew about the people, the happier he was. In the beginning it was out of raw hatred of their cruelty and control. Since then he’d learned there were a precious few fug folk who actually behaved decently, but that only encouraged him to work even harder at ignoring them. The only thing worse than having a race of people you universally hate is knowing that there are some of them who haven’t earned that hate.
Just as he reached the top of the last set of stairs and stepped out into the whipping wind of the deck, he found a phrase he’d been hoping for. There, with three underlines and six exclamation points, was a simple sentence: They’ve found a new ichor well!
“Captain!” Gunner called. “We’ve got something.”
“It better be something that can point me in a direction a mite more useful than ‘north,’” the captain called without looking.
Captain Mack was standing, as always, at the helm. Lester and Dr. Prist were standing before him. The captain’s chivalry had clearly gotten the better of him, as his heavy leather coat now hung about the shoulders of the doctor. He must have been freezing, but to look at his face one would think he’d simply browbeaten the cold wind into leaving him alone.
“That remains to be seen,” Gunner said, joining them at the helm. “This Lucius P. Alabaster seems to have kept a journal of his plans.”
“Not coded or anything?”
“No. I’ve only spent a minute or two reading his entries, but I’m already convinced the idiot would never have imagined he’d be caught. He’s such a blowhard, finding anything useful is going to be a chore, but he certainly knows about the ichor well. According to the date, he’s known about it since before we took down Skykeep.”
Dr. Prist pulled the coat a bit tighter and furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t that months ago?”
“Yes it was,” Gunner said.
“Then he’s had ample time to inform the phlogiston industry of it, or, failing that, to do as the Well Diggers of yours are hoping to do and claim it for his own. Why wouldn’t he have acted immediately?”
“The only thing I care about right now is where our people are and who they ought to be watching out for,” Captain Mack said.
“I’m reading as quickly as I can, Captain,” Gunner said. “Let me see… ‘…unaccountable brilliance of my machinations… golden bait awaiting a trap to be fashioned and sprung’… Ah! ‘If these imbeciles are to be believed, navigation within The Thicket is not conducive to determining locations with precision. Even less so than in the rest of the fug. They say they could easily find the well again, but giving coordinates sufficient to send airships for proper development and commerce will require a well-financed expedition of several months, or a means to send some sort of signal from within the fug, which could be viewed from above. Naturally I have no intention of financing a proper expedition. The size of—’”
“If there’s a point to this, save your breath and skip to it,” Captain Mack said.
“Alabaster seems quite opposed to getting to the point. This may be it. ‘Obviously the blood needs to be on someone else’s hands. That black sheep of an offshoot of the Ebonwhite clan seems the right mix of administrative and subversive. I shall have those dolts drip-feed him information about the well. He’ll no doubt set about claiming it himself. When he finds it, a signal can be sent. That Bludo character seems convinced the well is somewhere along the North Circa to Precipice trade route. I’ll arrange some shipments on the appropriate dates, and a signal can be sent to pinpoint the place.’”
“North Circa to Precipice is a long route without much payoff. Special orders are just about the only way anyone makes that trip direct.”
“Captain, this journal is littered with mentions of us. He is obsessed. The only name that comes up more often than Wind Breaker in the pages I’ve read is Ferris Tusk.”
“Tusk… He worships the man, no doubt. The man who crippled the surface…”
“In a way… but it seems more like he’s grooming himself to become the new Tusk.”
“Wait just one moment,” Lester said. “Are you suggesting that somehow this entire enterprise has been orchestrated by some well-heeled manipulator?”
“I don’t need to suggest it, Lester. It’s all right here in his own copious words,” Gunner said.
The shivering fug man clenched his fists tightly. “Blast it! Blast it and confound it! This was to be my moment! My ticket to the life I deserved! It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I’ve debased myself and endured the whims of you ruffians for nothing! Nothing at all!”
He stomped angrily about the helm, raving about the injustice of it all. Captain Mack cast a weary glance at Dr. Prist.
“Is this the usual for you folk? Living your life like the world owes you something?” he asked.
“It is… well, if I’m perfectly honest, that particular form of ambition and aspiration is not entirely uncommon among my countrymen. Among the intellectual set and the industry there is a rather firm pressure to succeed and the expectation of success, owing to our frequently superior cognitive skills.”
“… the raw potential, and with my investment savvy and marketing acumen I could have turned it into an empire. We all would have been wealthy! This is an outrage! A tragedy! I—”
“Shut it!” barked Captain Mack. “I got people down there with folk working for this Alabaster fella. So unless you know a way to help us find where they are, you can clam up, or we’re throwing you overboard.”
Lester’s mouth hung open briefly, but he wisely chose to forgo further comment.
“There’s plenty of talk of traps and plans levied against us, Captain,” said Gunner. “If we do find the well, the chances are good we’ll be walking into something.”
“And now we know that, which gives us a leg up. You keep reading that book. Maybe you can find out what he’s got in store. But before you do, go check the guns. I want grape shot in all of them, and get the valves set to feed these deck guns. Once you’re through, get Lester to help go through that book. Since he seems so angry about Alabaster, maybe the chance to foil his plans will get him to stop moping.”
Lester broke in: “Oh yes, I assure you, even if it means memorizing every last word in that book and reciting it back to you, I shall find a way to prevent this opportunist from snatching away the well that would make me my fortune.”
Gunner, visibly irritated with once again being saddled with Lester, led the furious fug man below decks. Along the way he passed Coop, who was on his way back up.
“I miss anything good, Cap’n?” Coop asked.
“Alabaster knows about the well. Everything with the Well Diggers is his doing. Bludo’s one of his men.”
“Is he? Glad I got some slugs in during that brawl then.”
“More like than not we’re heading into a trap, so I want your eyes open, and be ready to unload them guns into anything that looks like it means us mischief.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Coop said.
The deckhand hurried off to his own assignment, leaving Dr. Prist with the captain.
“This is all… rather unfortunate.”
“Nothing we didn’t expect going into it. Ain’t never had a deal with you folk go another way than this.”
“I feel obliged to defend my race. But at present I am rather at a loss for how to do so.”
“Don’t trouble yourself on my account. I been alive long enough to know every rule gets broke from time to time. Just because most fug folk we meet’d sooner put a leash around our necks and start yelling commands don’t mean you’re the same.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what is your plan for me now?”
“I ain’t lost hope that this well plan can’t be salvaged, and you’re a part of that. If things go sour… so long as you don’t give us reason to feel different, I can see clear to dropping you wherever you want to go, within reason.”
She paused and crossed her arms, causing the coat to crinkle and shift. “This has been a rather unique experience thus far. On one hand, you and the rest of your crew have lived up to my expectations. You are crude and brusque. You are violent and impulsive. But on the other hand you aren’t what I’d imagined at all. In your own way you’re… almost gentlemanly. And even if you are rough around the edges, there is a cleverness to even the slowest among you.”
“That’s giving Coop a bit more credit than he deserves, I reckon. But you never met a finer deckhand. And his sister’s just as good. You ain’t met her yet. By now she’s at the well. Either in a trap, on her way into a trap, or on her way out of one, if things are going the way the seem to be.”
“That von Cleef fellow, the man you call Gunner—he’s actually rather brilliant, in a deranged sort of way.”
“Not brilliant enough to keep all his fingers.”
“Having caught a glimpse of the concoctions he’s devised, I’d say the fact that he’s kept his head is rather a surprise. In my university days, they referred to that ‘burn-fast’ explosive he’s so fond of as ‘the devil’s candle.’ I believe my instructor called it ‘entirely theoretical’ and ‘not a theory worth pursuing for those wishing to avoid an early grave.’”
“Gunner’s never been one to let good sense get in the way of a good explosive.”
“Rather an admirable trait. At a distance. If not for the fact you’d likely use them against my own people, I’d actually be intrigued to collaborate with him. He’s a stubborn, wrongheaded brute, but he’s got some interesting ideas about oxidizers.” She cleared her throat. “I understand the two women who went on the well expedition… one of them is the Calderan?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard some rumors about her.”
“Seems you folk spend a lot of time jawing about us.”
“They say she’s the one who fixes your engine. I’m no engineer, but from the glimpses I’ve seen, she’s been keeping your ship in good repair.”
“Not to offend, Doctor, but I ain’t one for idle chitchat. Especially not when I’m at the wheel. And especially not about a woman who could end up dead if we don’t figure out how to get to her.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I can offer my observations in hopes of solving the puzzle of finding the well. On general principle, I would prefer if your people weren’t killed, but more selfishly the concrete discovery of the well—and keeping it out of the hands of the industry—is more or less my only chance of working with ichor personally.”
“If you’ve got ideas, I’m all ears.”
“Let us see… the fug density effect at the threshold of its repulsion would render it little more than a dense cloud of purple from above. Perhaps if it was in a field and the sun were particularly bright, that would make it easily visible from afar, but in The Thicket it would blend quite well with the foliage. Simply looking would do no good. … Alabaster’s plan was for those within to signal passing airships. I imagine it is the sound of the airship that would prompt them to trigger whatever flare or other signal they might have in mind. Do you think if you were to pass, they would simply signal you?”
“Could be. Of course, could be them girls already worked out what’s what and took care of the people who were going to do the signaling. If they did it quick enough, they might not know to send the signal. And even if they did know that was the plan, they wouldn’t do it. Keeping the well a secret until it’s properly defended is a part of the plan.”
“Ah… yes. Oddly, if they succeed in their task, it would make your task more difficult. A pity then that it can’t work the other way ’round. You signaling them somehow. Of course, that’s preposterous to suggest. You’d need to know where to signal them, you’d need a means to do so. All manner of flaws with that plan.”
The captain’s usually gruff and impassive face shifted slightly. To Dr. Prist’s untrained eye, there was no change at all, but had one of the other members of the crew been present, they would have known it as the moment of epiphany. He reached down and twisted a knob. Machinery above them sputtered and ground to life, pumping additional phlogiston into their envelope and causing the airship to climb steeply.
“What are you up to?” Dr. Prist said, gazing curiously at the workings above her.
“It’s darn difficult to do any precise navigation beneath the fug. I’ve got to surface long enough to get a good look at the sky and work out how to get on that trade route. If we work the turbines hard, we could probably line up on it in half a day. Coop!”
“Yeah, Cap’n?” Coop called back while he fiddled with the valves running to one of the deck guns.
“Go rouse Wink. He’s probably curled up by the boiler.”
“Er…” Coop said, glancing surreptitiously from side to side. “Who’s Wink, Cap’n?”
“Just get him,” the captain barked.
“Okay, Cap’n. But he might take some convincing, on account of how he knows he don’t exist too.”
“You tell him he’s ordered to report to the deck.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
“Wink? Is there a member of the crew I’ve not met?”
“There is, Doctor. By design, seeing as how you’re liable to have some questions I ain’t keen on answering once he shows up and starts following orders. But since this is the best idea out of a bad set, I ain’t got much in the way of options.”
They were climbing quickly now, so much so that Dr. Prist felt her ears pop, and the chill to the air was getting ever sharper. The rigging creaked and protested as the overloaded ship pitched skyward.
“Captain, please remember we’ve got Alabaster’s ship strapped to our belly,” said Gunner, his voice echoing through the speaking tube. “We aren’t as maneuverable as we might be.”
“Gunner, that ain’t near the worst part of what I’ve got planned, so save your advice until you know the lot of it,” Captain Mack said.
Amid the groan of struggling turbines and torquing struts, a light skittering sound approached. Wink appeared as if from nowhere, hopping up onto the support for the ship’s wheel and casting a distrustful glance at Dr. Prist.
“Oh my! Is that… is that an inspector? Heavens, they said you killed yours.”
“Seems you’re learning not to believe everything you hear, Doctor,” the captain said. “Wink, about how close do we need to be for Nikita to hear you doing your tapping?”
Nikita on a ship and Wink on a ship, Nikita could heard from very far. Nikita not on a ship and Wink not on a ship, Nikita could not heard from very far, tapped the creature, its lack of recent practice showing in its stilted wording.
“You’ll be here on the Wind Breaker, tapping on the main pole.”
Captain said never tapped on the main pole.
“Well the cap’n’s saying different now. How close for
Nikita to hear it?”
“Are you… do you think you are talking to the beast?” Dr. Prist asked.
More than feet, less than miles.
“So a mile then, maybe a bit more.”
Not much more. And Wink couldn’t heard Nikita answer from that far if she didn’t tapped on a pole.
“All right. You get yourself down to Glinda and get yourself a bellyful. You got a long day of tapping to do. When you get back up here, I’ll give you the message.” He leaned down to his speaking tube. “Glinda, I’m sending Wink down. You give him whatever he wants to eat and plenty of it. And send up something for me. Coffee, too. Ain’t much sleep in our future.”
Wink scampered off, leaving Dr. Prist with a puzzled look on her face.
“What is this all about, Captain?”
“I ain’t too pleased you saw what you did, but he’s going to be drumming away at the main pole there for a day, so it ain’t like I’d be able to hide him anymore. That said, I sure ain’t going to lay it plain for you. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Shouldn’t take you long to work it out.”
He leaned low again to the speaking tube. “Everyone, here’s the plan. I let the cat out of the bag with Wink. He’s going to be drumming out a message while we trace along a trade route Gunner dug up in Alabaster’s book. That’s liable to bring us a lot of attention, so everyone be on high alert.”
Butch’s unmistakable voice came blaring angrily out of the tube.
“Well I didn’t order you to stay in the galley, now did I? You want an update, talk to Gunner. He’s liable to know more than me about the details, him having the book. The important part is, if Wink gets through to Nikita, we can find the girls and warn them. We’re mired pretty deep in a scheme, but we been in worse and come out safe. Just everyone keep your eyes and ears open, and don’t be shy about pulling any triggers.”
He finished his rally call just as the Wind Breaker breached through the top of the fug. Indigo streamers of the toxic gas twisted and pulled away, stripping away the chemical sting from the still-icy air. It was the early hours of dawn, and though the sun wasn’t strong in the sky yet, Dr. Prist squinted and shielded her eyes.
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