Ichor Well

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “I’m still a member of the crew, Lil. I’ve still got a job to do. We’re behind on the pipe run from—”

  Lil pushed Nita to sit down, then plopped down next to her. “Nope, we ain’t behind on nothin’. Gunner and I got the kettles all piped up two hours ago. That big boiler from the one ship we tore up is warming up now. And since I don’t hear no pipes bursting or folk screaming, I reckon we did it right. And Coop’s installing them safety what’s-its between there and the refinery.”

  “Really…” Nita said.

  “Yep. I reckon having you here to tell us what to do, but not having you there able to do it for us if we had something else that needed doing, gave us the kick in the pants we needed to finish learning the ins and outs of all this. It really ain’t so hard. I still ain’t got much of a clue how it all works, or how you manage to build new bits of it. But putting the pieces together ain’t too tough.”

  “I told you. General maintenance is simple.”

  “Simple if someone hammers it into your head for a couple of weeks. So anyway, you just sit here and relax. Ain’t nobody out there that needs you for nothing important. Just let that ankle heal up and—”

  Coop stuck his head in the door. “Nita, Cap’n wants you over in the refinery.”

  Lil glared at him. “Dang it, Coop! I just got her sat back down!”

  “Cap’n wants her. Says Dr. Prist’s just about ready to start up that brick-packer gadget Nita and her rigged up.”

  “Oh, excellent! I’d forgotten it was the new piping we were waiting for,” Nita said, standing up again.

  Lil grumbled. “Now I know why Butch is always so surly. Us folk are the worst patients.”

  Nita got her crutches situated and began to make her way out the door, with Coop and Lil sticking close in case there was even the possibility she might stumble. They crunched along a fresh snow that still twinkled in the air under the glow of the phlo-lights. Keeping the place lit was something that had to be balanced against keeping it hidden, so the lights weren’t nearly as bright as they could be. The result was a subdued, almost intimate lighting for such an industrial place. The light caught the flakes as they fell, making the periwinkle-stained ice crystals seem dark indigo. It was oddly beautiful, though the frigid nip to the air did motivate them to pick up the pace a little.

  They moved through what had become something of a boomtown. Freshly milled lumber mixed with salvaged wood to build brand new buildings. Networks of pipe and belts ran between them, and the Well Diggers hustled to and fro to hammer in a new plank here or tighten up a timing pulley there.

  “Look at all if it,” Nita said with a smile. “This is truly making me homesick for the steamworks in Caldera.”

  “We’ll get you there soon as we can, darlin’,” Lil said, the barest hint of regret coloring her expression. “You done more than you had any cause to for us, and it’s just about time you traded them air legs for land legs again before you end up losing one.”

  “Not so long ago you were dead set against the thought of me leaving.”

  “Not so long ago you didn’t need to use no crutches.”

  “What’s this about Nita leavin’?” Coop said, slowly catching up on the topic.

  “Pay attention, Coop. You remember the deal. Nita here got us on the wrong side of the fug folk, so she stuck around until we could sort out our own repairs. We got that all covered now. And even if we didn’t, we got these Well Digger folks we can deal with now. Couple engineers in the group, or at least near enough to do what we need.”

  “What’s that got to do with Nita leaving? She’s on the crew.”

  “She’s finished her tour, Coop. She’s earned her ticket back home.”

  “But… she’s on the crew. A body don’t leave this crew except if they get killed or get kicked out. And she ain’t done neither.”

  His confusion was genuine, as though he’d been told Nita had decided to start breathing water. His brain couldn’t comprehend that a decision such as hers was even possible.

  “We’ll talk about it later, Coop.”

  “All right,” he said, effortlessly dropping the concern from his mind. “So, Nita. I, uh… I been working on this poem. From way back.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s right, I do remember you mentioning that.”

  “Right, so, I finished it, I think. You reckon you want to hear it?”

  “Of course, Coop.”

  “I ain’t even got to read it or nothin’. It’s all up here,” he said, tapping his head.

  “I like lookin’. And I like cookin’,

  ’specially when it’s pie.

  “Sometimes I reckon, the mornin’ sun beckons

  fer me to look it straight in the eye.

  “When I see a bird, it churns up these words,

  and then I’m fixin’ to write ’em down.

  “’Cause eggs in a clutch, an’ flowers an’ such

  are pert near the pertiest things around.

  “Singers that sing, painters paintin’ things,

  and storytellers tellin’ stories too,

  “Ain’t none do as good, as a single glance would,

  so long as that glance was at you.”

  He cleared his throat. “So. What’d you think?” he said.

  “It’s lovely, Coop,” Nita said, trying her best not to sound like she was giving a child a pat on the head.

  “Ha! I told Gunner you’d like it. He was saying folks from Caldera spend their whole lives writing just one poem. This here only took me a couple of months.”

  “You did fine work. My brother in particular will be delighted to hear it.”

  “You just make sure folks know it was ol’ Coop who wrote that, and he wrote it for you. … You’re the ‘you’ I was glancin’ at in that last bit there.” He looked aside and raised his voice. “Hey, Gunner! She liked it! I told you she would. This poem stuff is easy!”

  “I’m sure she did,” Gunner called back, his tone quite at odds with his words.

  “So, Nita, you think… maybe… one of these days we might could… spend a day, you know… talkin’ about poems and art and such? Once we head back to Keystone in a few weeks.”

  “She’s heading home, Coop. Don’t you remember?” Lil said.

  “Home? But she’s a member of the crew,” he said, confused anew.

  Lil covered her eyes. “Never mind, Coop. We’re just about here.”

  The group made their way onto the gravel path leading to the main refinery building. It was the largest and most solidly built of the buildings, a long narrow hall that even from the outside looked like an assembly line with a building wrapped around it. Pipes ran out from a stout metal cover they had erected over the pit to eliminate any risk of accidentally bringing about the scenario Alabaster had so eagerly sought—and which in retrospect had very nearly been caused by their unwittingly dangerous use of explosives during the battle. The pipes continued into the building, and a small glass window on the primary pipe showed a slow but steady flow of the radiant golden substance for which so much blood had been spilled.

  When they stepped inside the building, the fug folk flare for industry became instantly apparent. There was not an ounce of the artistic flare that one might find in a typical Calderan construction or the general slapdash nature that tended to result from the constructions of surface dwellers. Everything was austere and efficient, laid out in precise routes of pipes and tubes, each over well-placed burners or emptying into scrupulously clean vats and tubs. On her feet at the center of the building, looking over the entire venture with the air of a general reviewing her troops, stood Dr. Prist. The past few weeks had made her a very different woman. Gone was the simple but stately dress she’d worn at the academy. She now wore a darker outfit. It was still a dress, oddly, but made from the same material as the overalls worn by the rest of the crew. On top of it was a rubber apron, joined by shoulder-length rubber gloves. Rather than the typical goggles worn by most of the others, she had a face
shield that may or may not have been cut from the curve of a large beaker and fashioned with leather and brass into something rather elegant.

  “Dr. Prist, it’s been a while since I was inside. You’ve really made something of this place.”

  “Mmm?” the doctor said, drawn suddenly from her thoughts. “Oh, yes! Your people and these diggers have done a fine job. I believe this chemical stack I’ve designed will certainly increase the yield, or at least maintain a similar one with reduced complexity.”

  She tapped at a small glass nozzle and slid a beaker under it. With a twist of a valve, a thin stream of liquid gold drizzled down.

  “I’ve really been able to achieve a very high degree of purity. Not nearly what they purport to achieve at South Pyre, mind you, but… well, give me time! Oh! But you’re here to see the brick packer. We were just about to activate it.”

  She paced along a long modular sequence of machines. Nita looked upon it in wonder. In point of fact, she was intimately familiar with the mechanical aspect of the equipment, if not the chemical processes. She’d helped to design it, but her additions to the project had been largely in spoken recommendations or scribbled notes. The ever-vigilant Lil had kept her out of the work areas for the most part. Seeing what had been done with the place was like seeing something fall out of her imagination and into reality.

  “This is where we store the pyrum. Note the insulation and isolation. We wouldn’t want that to catch fire. Here is where the ash is stored, and we’re experimenting with some sticky gum from the bushes here in The Thicket to replace the wax that’s usually used. Wood chips and sawdust are here, a bit of coal dust here, and of course, here are the forms.” Dr. Prist clapped her hands together and turned to Nita. “I must say I was rather… concerned when I learned that through no fault of my own I had become embroiled in some sort of plot involving the Wind Breaker. But this… this glorious facility… I would have had to wait years to have a chance to work with this remarkable substance. And to build something from scratch? To attempt new ideas? I might never have had the chance.”

  “Flip the switch, Doctor,” said Captain Mack as he walked in from the far door. “You done fine work here, and I can appreciate you’re proud, but the sooner we’ve got a cargo-hold full of this stuff the quicker we can be out of your hair and on our way back with some of them goods you’re after.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. Er, Kent, if you would? We’ll just do the one tray, so push the lever all the way up when the sweeper arm is returning.”

  Kent, barely visible on the other side of the long assembly line among an array of switches and valves, nodded once and put his weight on a lever. A trio of pumps shuddered on and began to pipe a thick gray paste into a grid of brick-size voids that looked like something out of a factory bakery. The nozzles hitched upward and shut off in a little bit of automated choreography, leaving a curl of paste at the end of one brick before beginning another. The same elegant motion repeated across the whole of the pan, then the nozzles retracted and a wooden slat slid across the tops of the pans, wiping off the excess.

  As instructed, Kent switched it off when the process was through.

  “And there we have eighteen five-pound bricks of my own recipe for burn-slow. It isn’t quite the equal for the South Pyre stuff. Mine isn’t so dense, and it leaves a bit more resin in the firebox when it is through, but it burns just as long. A few minutes to cool, then wrapped in paper and they are yours and more to follow. All of this will be automated of course, once we get the new parts…”

  She continued to speak, but the words went unheard by the captain, who stepped forward and stared down at the tray of fuel. His face was impassive, but those who knew him could see the emotion lurking just below the surface. In the days since the fug folk had begun limiting the supply of the stuff, the Wind Breaker had not had more than fifty pounds of burn-slow at any given time. They were finishing most trips with their last brick of the stuff in the firebox, and twice had been forced to limp to a port on coal alone. The fuel in front of him would have cost them more than a month’s worth of their earnings, and finding it would have been anything but certain. What lay before him now wasn’t just fuel. It was freedom. It was the lifeblood of his ship and his career.

  “It works beautifully, Dr. Prist,” Nita said.

  “Thanks in no small part to your recommendations. I look forward to your proposal of performing the motion on the trays rather than the nozzles.”

  A new voice rose over the din of the machinery as it whirred down. “Oh! So the first test has gone well, I see.”

  They turned to find Digger, the organizer of the little group. He’d arrived along with the first round of supplies. Considering the danger he would be in, and thus the group would be in, if he were to be captured, he decided a bit of hands-on leadership from within The Thicket was called for.

  “As Dr. Prist says, we are all great admirers of your ingenuity, Miss Graus. You don’t work quite to the level of… precision that we are accustomed to, but your ideas are refreshingly innovative and quite reliable. I don’t suppose you could be coerced into staying on as our engineer…”

  “Hey! She’s ours, and she ain’t even going to be that for too much longer, so you just keep your coercing to yourself,” Lil said.

  “I really should be going home after this,” Nita said with a nod.

  “Of course. And that is entirely your right. Come, if you would, I’d like you to have a look at something we’ve been tinkering with.”

  Nita nodded and followed where he led. For the first few steps, Lil continued in her role of living crutch, but she paused.

  “Coop, you reckon you can help her on your own for a bit?”

  “Sure,” Coop said.

  Lil watched them continue on their way. When they were out of earshot, and the rest of the Well Diggers had returned to their tasks, Lil turned to the captain.

  “Cap’n?”

  “Yes, Lil.”

  “I know I ain’t usually the sort to ask too many questions but… aw heck, there’re some things that are running my mind ragged.”

  He looked at her, a bit more intently.

  “I was talking to Gunner, and he was saying how, what with you having that island you bought from them folk at Lock and… look, just lay it to me plain. Are you lookin’ to hang it up?”

  “I am.”

  “When were you gonna say so?” she said angrily.

  “I didn’t reckon I needed your permission.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Lil fumed. “You been meaner than a hungry dog lately. If I was looking at the end of a nice long career like yours, I’d be lookin’ forward to kickin’ my feet up, not snappin’ at folks and generally bein’ miserable.”

  He glared at her briefly, but then his expression softened. “No, Lil, you wouldn’t. You’d think you would. But pretty soon you’d get to thinking about how you only ever knew how to do just the one thing, and now you were going to have to set it aside. And at the same time you’d be worried how you came this close and then things started aligning against you. You’d start to think how you were either going to win the fight or lose the fight, and either way the fight’d end, and fightin’s all you ever done.”

  “If you don’t want to quit, then don’t quit. You still got a lot of years in you.”

  “No. Not good ones, Lil. You don’t want a man who ain’t his best at the wheel of any ship. Better to hang it up than take the Wind Breaker and the rest of you down with me when I finally run short of luck.”

  Lil crossed her arms. “You ain’t doing me and Coop any favors. Once you take off the cap’n’s hat, we’re pretty much adrift.”

  “No you ain’t.”

  “Yeah we are!” she snapped. “No cap’n, no Wind Breaker. No Wind Breaker, no crew. I like my life right where it is, and now Nita’s headin’ out. You’re not long for it either. And then we’re off to find our own way, and there ain’t no way that’ll hold a candle to this one.”

 
; “You’re free to settle down on the island. It’s plenty big for that. But you won’t. For the same reason settling down ain’t putting a smile on my face. For the same reason you’re wasting your tears weeping over Nita going home again.”

  “Wasting my tears?”

  “She’s heading home. Maybe she even thinks it’s for good. But if she makes it long enough for that ankle of hers to heal up, it’ll be a miracle. The reason this crew works is because we all got a dose of the same madness. You, me, Butch, Coop, Gunner, Nita? We all got the sky in our blood now. The ground won’t ever be enough for long. Nita’ll be back. She’ll be back in the sky again just as soon as she can be. And she’ll be looking for a crew like this one. And that means she’ll be back with us. Because there ain’t but one crew like the Wind Breaker crew.”

  “… You mean it, Cap’n?”

  “Mean it? Ain’t nothing to mean about, Lil. I know it. Now once Nita’s through, round up the crew and let’s get to loading. I want to get into the sky before our luck runs dry.”

  #

  Deep in the remnants of a used-up mine, a defeated and dejected Lucius P. Alabaster lay in a cell, staring at the ceiling. He was alone, the first prisoner in the deepest section of a prison that was hastily contracted to replace Skykeep. Stripped of his garish white garb, he was dressed now as a common prisoner. His face was blank, his eyes distant. When there came a knock at the bars, he barely shifted his gaze.

  “Mr. Alabaster?” asked a familiar voice.

  Alabaster turned his head and squinted at his visitor. “… Tender?” he said, confused by the presence of the simply dressed employee of his old club.

  “Yes, Mr. Alabaster. I’ve got some messages for you. You’ve been away from the club for some time.”