Analog SFF, December 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “So Hayden, Martor, you can't begin to imagine the excitement I felt when I came here and first saw two of your ships sailing out of the clouds. They were identical! They worked the same way, used exact copies of the same machines. Here were people who could take their own mental models of objects, and make them physically real. Virga is a wonder to me, because here you have knowledge and you use it to make more than one of things. Every time I see a new one of something I've seen before—like these ships—I'm thrilled all over again.” She beamed at them. “You live in a very special world."

  As she had been speaking, the box she'd been working on had been slowly, strangely, drifting towards one wall. She noticed it and seized it. “That's not a good sign,” she muttered.

  Martor rubbed at his chin, considering. “Is that why you seemed surprised that I'd heard of gravity, the other day?"

  The armorer nodded. “Gravity, exactly. Uh ... yes, most of the worlds I know are replacing concepts like gravity with new mythologies their artists are crafting.” Hayden and Martor must have really looked lost at this point, because Mahallan laughed richly when she glanced over at them.

  “I'd heard,” ventured Hayden, “that the people from beyond Virga live forever, can travel anywhere in the universe, and can do anything."

  Mahallan shrugged. “Oh, sure. And that means we have no more need to know anything. That's a tragedy. I spent years learning what you call the sciences, but it was difficult to find entities who knew how to teach them. Most such knowledge is implicit in the construction of things ... not written down, as it were. In fact, that's why I came to Virga. It was the one place I knew where there was no Artificial Nature."

  “Why is that?"

  She leaned forward like a conspirator. “Candesce disrupts the systems of Artificial Nature. It was refitted to do that centuries ago, in order to keep my people's civilization out of Virga. There are side effects that aren't good for your civilization, though—and that's why we're building these.” She waggled the burnt-out box.

  “What do they do?” Hayden had asked this very question a dozen times now, and she'd side-stepped the issue every time. Maybe now that she wanted to talk, she'd give it away.

  But Mahallan just smiled enigmatically and said, “They'll help us win."

  At that moment there was a knock on the door. Before any of them could move, Venera Fanning poked her head into the tiny chamber. “Aha,” she said. “The night-owls are up, as promised."

  “Venera,” said Aubri neutrally. The admiral's wife swept into the room, frowning as she spotted Martor.

  “So, the little spy-for-hire has wormed his way into your good graces. Get out, or I'll have the boatswain chop off your fingers."

  Martor scrambled past her and out the door. With a faint smile of satisfaction, Venera closed it behind him. Turning to the other two, she clasped her hands before her and said, brightly, “How is it coming along?"

  “It was coming along just fine, until you ejected my assistant,” said Aubri.

  “Bah!” Venera waved away the problem. “You still have this one. Though not for long—I need him to pilot me tomorrow. We're going on a little trip. You're coming too."

  Aubri carefully placed the device she'd been working on in a dark wooden case and shut it. “Where is it that we're going?"

  “Our first stop. First official stop, I mean. I want you to come with because you've been here before."

  “Really?” Aubri shifted uncomfortably. Hayden thought she looked very unhappy all of a sudden. “Have we circled back to Slipstream, then?"

  Venera barked a laugh. “You know that's not where I mean. We're coming up on the tourist station! That was your first home when you came to Virga, wasn't it? You should know your way it around pretty well."

  “As a matter of fact, I don't. And I don't appreciate being sent back to it without consultation. Unless—” She paled suddenly. “You're not sending me back..."

  “Of course not, silly woman. I need you to find someone for me—talk to them, make a deal. That's what this is all about, isn't it? Our deal?"

  “Yes,” murmured Aubri. To Hayden's astonishment, he saw that she wouldn't look Venera in the eye. Venera either didn't notice this, or accepted it as normal. She turned to Hayden, smiling her predatory smile.

  “Be ready to fly at eight o'clock sharp. We'll be taking the bike and sidecars, so they'd better be put together."

  “Yes, ma'am."

  “Good.” Without another word, Venera left. As soon as the door closed, Aubri spun and went to the porthole. She yanked it open and stuck her head outside. Hayden heard muffled cursing coming from beyond the hull. “What's going on?"

  She pulled her head back in and grimacing at him, gestured at the open porthole. He slipped by her and put his own head out into the cold whispering wind.

  For a moment he saw nothing but the usual darkness and clouds. Then with a start he realized that what he had taken to be a giant puff-ball of vapor was made of facets and sweeping curves of glittering ice. They were sailing past a frozen lake: an iceberg as big as any of the cylinders of Rush.

  He brought his head back in. “There's an iceberg outside."

  Aubri shook her head dejectedly. “Look again.” Puzzled, Hayden looked out again. Well, there was the iceberg, and actually there was another one too, on the other side of it. And another—they were attached tip-to-top, making a kind of chain.

  A wreath of cloud slipped over and past the ship, and in the opening that followed he saw what Aubri wanted him to see—and gasped.

  The Rook's running lights reflected faintly from shimmering planes of ice, a thousand angles of it receding into blackness. The ship's cyclopean headlight cast a cone of radiance into the dark and where it lit, Hayden beheld a forest of icebergs. They clung to one another by merest filaments and blades; a dense fog insinuated itself into every hollow and space between them. The Rook wove slowly around the giant spires of ice, each giant receding into the haze as others emerged ahead.

  Hayden's eye followed a line of bergs as they passed it, and he realized that they thickened and converged miles away until they were jammed together cheek by jowl. Dark crevasses gaped between them. He was reminded of the forest that carpeted Slipstream's asteroid, only instead of the crowns and cones of trees rising up from darkness, here was endless ice.

  “It's like a wall,” he said. Just then his chin bumped the edge of the porthole. For some reason he'd started to drift into the ship—probably the air pressure.

  “It's not a wall,” said Aubri sourly. “It's a ceiling. The ceiling, to be precise."

  “The...” He got it then. “This is the world's skin?"

  “The skin of the balloon, yes. Everything else in Virga is below us here. That's why we're feeling gravity. I should have realized it from the way the engines were straining."

  In the distance a thunderous crack! echoed through the berg forest. Hayden looked out again, and beheld a mountain of ice majestically disengage itself from its neighbors. He watched it as it faded into the ice fog behind them; he was almost sure he could see it moving away from its brothers.

  “Candesce drives convection currents in Virga,” said Aubri, startling Hayden because she was right next to him, just below the porthole. “Rising water vapor condenses into lakes, and if it makes it all the way up here, it freezes. The skin of Virga is very, very cold. But the skin is also the top of Virga's gravity well, slight though that may be. As these bergs grow they become heavy. Eventually they dislodge and fall, melting as they go. The biggest of them make it almost to Candesce before they evaporate."

  Hayden contemplated the gargantuan icicles—for that was what they were—for a long time. Then he drew his head into the ship and said, “Why are we here?"

  Aubri's face was only inches from his own. He had never been this close to her, and it gave him an uncomfortable pleasure—but she was looking miserable. “What's wrong?"

  She pulled herself back to her workstation and fiddled with th
e lamp for a moment. “If I'd known we were coming here, I wouldn't have joined this expedition."

  Hayden crossed his arms and waited. After a few seconds, Aubri sighed heavily and said, “Look, I came to Virga to get away from that world.” She jabbed a thumb hullward, aiming, he supposed, past the skin at the universe beyond. “I'm a refugee here, and I don't like to be reminded of what I left. Even less do I want to revisit that insipid tourist station."

  He descended to sit on the air next to her. After musing for a few moments, he said, “I think I understand. I was born and raised in Aerie. Slipstream conquered it when I was still a boy. But I remember it—and there's reminders of it everywhere you look, from the crafts they sell in the market to the accents of people in the streets. They're ... painful. You start avoiding them. And then you feel guilty about it."

  She shook her head. “It's not like that. Not quite like that, but yeah, I don't like to be reminded.” She smiled suddenly. “I didn't know you were from Aerie."

  “Well, neither did anybody else before tonight,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him. “Are they going to know by morning?"

  Aubri raised an eyebrow. “No—no reason why they should."

  They sat in companionable silence for a while. Then a faint shudder went through the ship, and simultaneously the whine of the engines changed tone.

  Aubri groaned. “Are we there already?"

  The howl of the alarm klaxons drowned out any reply Hayden might have had, or any thought. He bounded to the window and looked out, in time to see bright streaks converge on one of the other ships from inside a vast cloudbank. Bright flashes lit the side of the ship. He was able to close and dog the porthole before the staccato noise of explosions reached the Rook.

  “We're under attack,” he said unnecessarily, but there was no reply as Aubri Mahallan had already left the room.

  * * * *

  Chaison Fanning threw on a jacket while an aide with a hand on his back steered him through the connecting passage to the bridge. Behind him the whole ship was awake and churning with activity. “How many are there?” he shouted ahead at the suddenly alert nightwatch. “What weapons?"

  “Admiral, it looks like Winter pirates,” said the frightened-looking Helm. He was a junior officer on one of his first watches. Probably more afraid of messing up than of the enemy.

  Chaison glided to the main periscope and took hold of its handles, slipping his feet into the stirrups below without having to look for them. For a few seconds he blinked, trying to figure out what he was looking at. Then practiced reflexes took over and he began counting and evaluating.

  “I see ten enemy craft. It's a whole fucking fleet. I bet there's more maneuvering inside that cloud bank."

  “Somebody at Warea must have told them about us,” said Captain Sembry from behind him. “We're probably the biggest prize that's ever wandered into their territory."

  “It's pure foolishness—they're not a navy, just a ragged flock of crows. What makes them think they can outmaneuver us? ... Ah.” He laughed humorlessly as he made out more details of the distant ships. “Some of them look like Aerie frigates. I take it back, they're not after booty. At least some of these people are carrying a grudge."

  He spun and offered the periscope to Sembry. “Captain, it's a classic night engagement. They've got us trapped in the center of a cylinder of cloud. Their ships have plumbed those clouds, and I don't doubt at all that there's some big icebergs lurking in there if we were foolish enough to follow them. They're going to hit and run out of the fogbanks because they know what's inside them. We have to take away that advantage."

  He turned to the disheveled but alert semaphore team. “All ships: launch bikes. Bikes to reconnoiter clouds, not to engage enemy unless attacked. All ships: rolling torus formation. All ships: ready rocket barrages, fire at will."

  Chaison went to a porthole and threw back its thick armored cover. Icy air flooded his face as he looked out at the scene.

  I told them Aerie should be left alone, he thought as more rocket explosions lit the night. The Pilot of Slipstream is an idiot.

  * * * *

  “Civilians to quarters!” The botswain waved his sword at Hayden for emphasis. “That means you, errand boy. And strap yourself in—we're going to be pulling heavy maneuvers."

  After a few moments of hesitation, Hayden retreated back to Mahallan's workshop. This was probably the only place in the ship where he'd be left alone. He nearly missed his grab for the door as the entire vessel shuddered. The sound of the engines was momentarily deafening, and a squeal of seldom-used brakes echoed from the fore. They were stopping the centrifuge so the Rook could maneuver without having to take gyroscopic effects into account. Somewhere in the distance he heard crashing sounds as the personal effects of dozens of airmen slid and tumbled inside the wheel.

  He stuck his head out the porthole, wary of getting it shot off. What he saw was a jumble of ships, lit intermittently by rocket fire, moving at all angles to one another with no way at first to tell friend from foe. Some of those silhouettes were familiar, however. Hayden knew the sleek forms of the Winter pirate vessels all too well, having spent some time on one of them during the years of his exile. He'd lied when he told Miles and the other resistance fighters that he'd spent all his time sitting on a mushroom farm in the middle of nowhere. The truth was more dangerous to admit.

  More details resolved as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Clouds of bikes were tumbling out of the ships now, their tearing buzz filling the air as they swarmed around one another. The whole tableau was framed by black cloud banks that pressed in on all sides. And now a huge frigate emerged as if by magic from one of those clouds, tongues of red fire erupting from its side as it fired a salvo of rockets point-blank into the stern of a Slipstream vessel. A good half of the rockets bounced off the cone-shaped end of the ship, drawing scarves of light on the darkness, but the remainder exploded. Beams and planking flew everywhere. The pirate rolled, jets screaming, and lined up its dorsal rocket battery. This time the bulk of the volley shot straight down the length of the Slipstream ship's exposed interior. A chain-reaction of explosions convulsed the victim and then the clouds flashed into flame-lit visibility as the ship burst like an over-ripe fruit. Men and materiel tumbled into the cold air while thunder banged and rolled around them.

  Hayden smiled in grim satisfaction. That was one less Slipstream ship. On the other hand ... he suddenly realized that the expeditionary force might lose this battle. If they were overwhelmed, there would be no prisoners taken. Everyone would be killed, from Admiral and Lady Fanning to Martor and Aubri Mahallan.

  He would cheer the deaths of the Fannings—or at least of the admiral. Venera ... he didn't know what to think of her. But her fate was out of his hands, he realized with a pang. She would never agree to escape with him. But maybe he could convince Martor and Aubri Mahallan to climb into the sidecars of his bike. They could arrow out of here, make for the tourist station, which he could now see through a gap in the clouds. It was miles away yet, an inverted, glittering landscape of towers; a city not rolled into cylinders but flattened out across the black ceiling of Virga.

  They could make for that swirl of light. They could survive.

  He turned and bolted for the workshop's door.

  * * * *

  “Who knew there were this many pirate ships in all of Virga?” muttered a crewman. Chaison Fanning didn't acknowledge the comment, but he'd been wondering the same thing. Had they gathered this fleet from all over the world, just to attack his little expeditionary force? Right now it seemed that Winter really was the vast dark empire of freebooters and privateers that some popular stories and songs made it out to be.

  Unbelievably, they'd already lost Rush's Arrow. The effect of the ship's explosion on the men had been immediate and dire. Chaison was now on his way through the ship, hurling orders and optimistic quips to the men as he went. He needed them to know that he trusted Sembry to command the Rook, and that
his primary concern was them. But he was followed by a stream of staffers and he paused at every porthole to stare out at the battle, and occasionally issue a terse order for the semaphore team.

  He stuck his head into the bike hangar. The place had been emptied out, all bikes in the air except for Venera's absurd racer with its sidecar, which her driver was laboring over. The hangar doors were wide open and men with rifles perched on them at various angles, haphazard gargoyles ready to fend off any comers. On his orders the ships had tossed out flares and so the clouds outside were lit a lurid green.

  Actually, the view from here was excellent, better than the bridge, even. Chaison leaped over to one of the doors and anchored himself next to a surprised airman. “Do you have any more of those?” he said, pointing to the man's rifle. “I'm aiming to take some personal vengeance for the Arrow."

  The airman grinned and shouted back, “A rifle for the admiral, boys!” One was passed up, the last several hands being those of his staffers, who looked uneasy and disapproving.

  He motioned for them to join him. “Run a speaking tube from here to the bridge,” he said. Just then the Rook's rotation brought the black-sided hull of a pirate corsair into view. The ship was less than three hundred feet away—he could see lights through its open rocket ports.