Night's engines nl-2

by Trent Jamieson

  Her face reddened, though the Old Man didn’t see it, he was already facing David again, striding across the deck as though he owned it. “You did not think we would leave you so unharried, even in the sky?”

  “Where are the others?” David asked, and she could see he was struggling to keep the fear and despair from his voice.

  Kara was gone. We’ve lost so much, Margaret thought, surely we should be used to it now.

  She fired again, a direct shot to the neck. The Old Man gestured towards her with a free hand, not even bothering to look. She felt her breath chill, felt the cold drive her back. She hadn't been ready for that.

  “Rupert, where are they?” David asked.

  The Old Man stopped, his eyes widened, lost a little of their heat. “So you haven’t forgotten?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “All too easily.” Rupert jabbed a long finger at David. “Look at you! Dressed in a boy. Who could guess what you know, what you remember?”

  “I remember enough.”

  “You remember nothing, or you wouldn't seek to do what you do.”

  “Where are the others?” David repeated, his voice low, calm, but not with the abstracted calmness of a Carnival addict: this was more measured, calculated.

  Rupert gestured vaguely in the air. “Near, I will not have to wait long with your corpse. Do not worry, Cadell. We will mourn you. There will be such a funeral pyre, perhaps the last great burning before the world ends. For we are the last great men, are we not?”

  David nodded, seemed to seriously consider it, but there was something condescending in the movement.

  Rupert frowned.

  “We could stop this now,” David said. “You don’t need to die.”

  “Death waits for every one of us,” Rupert said, and there was such a fever in his voice that he was utterly terrifying. “You most of all, it waits and it grinds its teeth waiting, isn’t it glorious?” The Old Man’s dark fingers slid towards his belt, grasped the cleaver that hung there and yanked it free. The blade looked familiar — was perhaps even the one which David had used to butcher Cadell's corpse. Rupert swung it square at David’s head.

  But David had already moved another two or three paces backwards, swift as thought, stumbling further when the cleaver, hissing through the air, struck out at him again. Not used to the speed he possessed.

  It wasn’t a graceful movement, but it was effective. Margaret fired again, hitting the Old Man in the face. He scarcely blinked. But this time, he turned, hefting the cleaver, as though it were no heavier than a butter knife. And she fired at his hand. The cleaver dropped away, and with it a couple of fingers.

  He wasn't indestructible. Her lips pulled back from her teeth.

  “You,” the Old Man said. “I have no argument with you. Typical of a Penn.”

  David swung out at the Old Man with fists that looked to be sheathed in ruddy ice. Rupert let the first fist strike him, blinked again. He punched David in the throat. David scrambled backwards. His eyes widened, he tried to rise, and fell again.

  The Roslyn Dawn lurched forward. Margaret found herself on the floor, the Old Man standing over her. “It does to be careful of one’s footing in such an environment, Miss Penn.”

  It could have been Cadell talking! She struck out with a boot, made contact with a leg, and felt the Old Man’s ankle give way.

  She said, “It does indeed.”

  The Old Man grunted, bent, but he was already regaining his feet, face dark, eyes bright, almost twinkling.

  “Take more than that,” Rupert said.

  “How about this?” Kara Jade struck his back with an iron pipe. Margaret fired another shot. This time a lead shell. Short range. The Old Man’s right eye disappeared.

  He shook his head, and blood sprayed: thick, cold and dark.

  “I’m here, too,” David said quietly, and smacked his hand down against the Old Man’s neck; bone cracked, but the Old Man danced backwards, almost hitting Kara, though the pilot moved back too. They circled him. Margaret fired a pistol, struck the Old Man in the chest. And this time Rupert moaned.

  David had picked up the cleaver. He took a step closer and Margaret unsheathed her rime blade. Didn’t bother activating it, she wanted its cutting edge.

  “The head, you say?” Margaret said.

  “Always the head,” David answered; he took a step forward, and the Old Man spat more blood.

  “No matter,” the Old Man said. “No matter. There are more of mine to come, but there are still hurts that I can offer. I’m a wounding thing, if not the death, your hurting must be my satisfaction.”

  “Enough of this,” David said.

  “Enough, indeed.” The Old Man snatched out, grabbed Kara around the waist, and slammed his bulk against the window. It bulged, and he struck it again, bearing all his weight and Kara’s against it; the material cracked, and gave way, and the Old Man and Kara fell.

  Margaret rushed to the edge of the window, looked down. The Old Man and Kara hung suspended by the Roslyn Dawn 's flagella. Even as Margaret watched, Kara was wrenched from the Old Man’s grip, but not before she gave him a good hard kick to the head.

  The Dawn groaned, and the Old Man was torn in two; a burst of blood and bone, made almost graceful by the delicate motion of the Dawn 's limbs — as though there could be poetry in such brutality.

  “The head or that,” David said.

  The Dawn 's limbs twitched and released the broken body, and Kara Jade clambered up them and into the ship.

  “No one does that to me,” she said, her lip split, one eye closed up and swollen. “Not here, not on the Dawn. No Old Man, nothing.” Kara looked over at Margaret, her gaze intense. “You excepted, of course. From you it's a compliment. Still kill you just as dead, though.”

  She might have said something else, but the Dawn dropped a dozen feet at once. Margaret hit the roof before dropping to the floor. Kara bent down and helped her up. David had managed to keep on his feet, wrist bound in one of the straps that hung from the ceiling. He looked dazed.

  “Get to a seat the both of you, and strap yourselves in,” Kara said. “The Dawn 's hurt, we're going to have to land.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Why were they punished so? The Mothers of the Sky were given their fastness in Drift, but the Old Men were buried, and drowned in hunger. What creation could be so cruel to punish its creators so?

  Questions on a Series of Ethical Imperatives, Deighton

  THE ROSLYN DAWN 1501 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

  Wind howled through the broken window.

  David let Margaret lead him to a seat. He could smell the Old Man's blood on his face. He wiped at it absently.

  “Strap yourself in, David,” Kara said. Margaret had already moved to a nearby seat.

  “Your eye,” he said to Kara.

  The pilot strode past him to the console. “That doesn't matter now. This is going to be fast and rough. The winds are building.” Kara Jade coughed: a dark bruise was already swelling across her jaw. “The Dawn 's been injured. We were lucky, could have punctured the flight bladders, could have ignited them; and I think that may have been what he was trying for, but this Aerokin’s different, a new swifter breed. He struck too low and burst only one of the gas chambers. Still, we need to get to ground.”

  Already the Dawn was listing to to the right.

  David managed to get the belts around his waist. They clicked closed; he tightened them around his shoulders. A little wave of panic struck him. The Dawn dropped again, the belts tightened around his shoulders.

  “We go down now, they’re going to get us,” David said. “You heard what he said, they’re not far behind, and he wasn't lying. I can feel them.”

  “Would have helped if you had felt them a little sooner, don't you think? We don’t have any choice,” Kara snapped. “We don’t land now, we’ll fall. And if we fall, we will die for certain. The Dawn caught me, not just once, but twice today, and I won't let her suffer for
it.”

  The Dawn shuddered and jerked in the sky. Sky and earth were getting closer, the ground looking less an abstract proposition; more a disaster looming.

  “Is it too late, already?” David asked.

  “She’ll be all right,” Kara said. “She can just sense the ground, that’s all. We’re just a bit bruised, she and I.”

  “How long will we need to stay down here?”

  “A day or two at most. The gas chamber will heal quickly enough. We might need to jettison some material. The beds for one, but we’ll see.”

  “They’ll hit us in the next twelve hours,” David said. “If we can’t flee, I’m going to have to fight.”

  And all of a sudden, he felt a sense of purpose come over him. A focus that he'd never possessed, one that was more strategic, less desperate. He peered at the window, the one nearest him, not the broken one.

  Down below, a thin ribbon of river gleamed, in the late afternoon light, rushing over a stony bed that worked its way between a series of low hills. It was a beaten landscape, hunched and ruined, and yet, in that light, it was beautiful. He could see possibilities, ways that the next forty-eight hours might play out.

  “There,” David said, sounding at once more confident, almost in charge. Kara and Margaret looked at him oddly. “Don't look at me,” he said. “Look down. There, near the river, the Malcontent, if I remember correctly. Try and bring us down near the river and the hills.”

  David coughed, the focus passed, panic filled its absence. There was nothing he wanted more than a nice calming dose of Carnival, but he needed Cadell. He knew he would have done better against Rupert if he'd let in more of Cadell’s mind.

  “I’ll get you there,” Kara said.

  And she did, in shuddering drops and starts, she and the Dawn made it down. The landing was hard, the Dawn 's flagella uncoiling yards away from the ground, and only marginally softening landfall. But they were down, and whole.

  David unstrapped himself quickly, and almost sprinted to the doorifice. Not wanting them to see the fear on his face. The doorifice opened, and David looked out. Here on the ground the beauty of this place was gone, the sun passed behind clouds, the river darkened, the wind howled. It was just cold and wet. David couldn't see how he could leverage a victory here. It was death already.

  “I've pistols in the rear cabinet,” Kara said. “Enough for the both of us. Margaret won't need ’em.”

  David shook his head. “You can’t stay, Kara. I want you to fly north of here. Find some cover and let the Dawn heal. She's too much of a risk here. If we scratch out a victory but lose her or you, we may as well have not fought at all.”

  “You saying that I'm not good in a scrap?” Standing there, one eye bloody, the other swollen shut; half her face a bruise, she looked as fierce a fighter as anyone could need.

  David smiled. “You know I'm not.” David shook his head. “The Old Men are hunting me. The Dawn is hurt because of me. We need you whole. Stay, and I think we'll all die. Please, trust me on this.”

  Kara walked to the gun cabinet, retrieved a pistol and handed it to him. “Don't know what good it will do.”

  David tucked the weapon in his belt. “I can always club someone with it.”

  He looked at Margaret.

  “You can go with her, too,” he said.

  Margaret laughed.

  “Bring your guns,” David said. “Anything that fires shells.”

  She was already hefting her bag onto her shoulder.

  Kara handed David a flare. “Use this when they come. If there's anything that I can do, I'll see it done.”

  David nodded, grabbed a blanket and Cadell’s umbrella. “For cover and cutting,” he said, yanking the blade free. He also snatched a dozen cans of food, and another couple for Margaret, stuffing them in a hessian bag. He rattled as he leapt from the doorifice.

  He could see the scarring of the Aerokin, the place where the Dawn was bleeding. Kara followed him, winced, and smeared healing gel over the great black wound. “She'll be all right,” Kara said. “She'll survive.”

  She ran back into the ship, and threw out two mattresses. “At least you will have something to sleep on.”

  The Dawn lowered her two cannon to the earth, leaving only the lighter guns on her carapace.

  Margaret touched the coiled conch-shaped cannon curiously, and David's hopes rose. Kara shook her head. “No good to you. Unless you're an Aerokin, can't be fired, all her weaponry's like that. And right now, even she can't use it.”

  David glanced cautiously behind him. “You better be on your way.”

  Kara nodded. “Good luck.”

  The Dawn lifted into the sky. Shorn of the weight of the guns and two passengers, her flight seemed a little easier. She passed to the west and north, and was soon lost to sight beyond the ridge. The sun was edging beneath the ridge as well. The shadows lengthened.

  “And now we wait,” David said. “They're hours away.”

  Margaret dropped her bag at his feet. “Night's coming, we need to gather wood, build a fire.”

  David looked at her, and she shrugged.

  “They know we’re here. Might as well be warm when I die.”

  CHAPTER 34

  You can never be certain how things will end. There is very little that is logical in the functioning of the universe, and certainly not when it comes to the works of humanity, even when it has been stripped of its humanity. Surprises exist at every turn.

  The Conclusion of Conclusion, Milan Adams

  THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS 1520 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

  David shook Margaret awake, dragged her from dreams of Tate. “Five minutes,” he said. “I thought it would be longer, but they’ve picked up pace. They want to get it over and done with, I guess.”

  It was close to midnight, the air so cold it felt like it could cut her lungs. David had the fire out. The north wind howled down across the river. The air was bright with the twin moons, and expectant. She could see her breath plume before her. What weapon was best? Rime blade? Rifle? She’d substituted her endothermic shells for simple shot. You could blow a man’s face away with a direct hit with one of these, she thought — if you were lucky.

  David shook, his teeth chattering.

  “I thought you could handle the cold.”

  “It’s not the cold. It's the Carnival, well, the lack of it. It’s the Carnival that holds him back,” David said.

  “So,” Margaret said. “You keep him that way.”

  David shook his head. “No, I can’t. We need him now. We need Cadell. This will cost me dearly. To bring him forward is to drive me back.”

  “I know which I would prefer,” Margaret said, and squeezed his hand.

  “It doesn’t matter what you would, what you want or what I want. We need to do this. We have to, and if that means there is no me after this, then scary as that is, I accept it.”

  “Is that you or Cadell saying that?”

  David smiled at her. “Still time for you to run.”

  To be so hunted, the both of us, Margaret thought. David stood there, his shoulders straight, one hand clutching the sword that he had taken from the umbrella. He cocked his head to one side and smiled. “Ah, and here they come.”

  A noise built. A great clattering of engines, a wheezing of machines pushed to their limits. This was an airship dying. Finally, it came into sight, its surface ablaze, passing low over the trees, almost touching the tallest ones.

  The dirigible passed overhead, and for a moment they were in shadow. Shots stung the air around them. Margaret dropped to a crouch and fired at the sky. The dirigible was already sliding over the ridge.

  “Don’t let it distract you,” David shouted into her ear. “They’re on the ground. They’re here!”

  David fired the flare.

  The land filled with light. He jerked a thumb to the right, near the tree line. A tall man stood there, dressed in a ragged morning coat, hands flung up against the light.

&
nbsp; “To the left, too,” David said. “By the rocks.” He fired his pistol there, at another man dressed in little more than rags.

  “Where are the rest of them?” Margaret said, firing to the right. The Old Man had already moved to cover.

  “Some always move faster than others. They'll be here soon enough, Miss Penn.”

  Margaret blinked.

  She asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Not at all,” David said, and the words were clearly a struggle. “But I am what I need to be.”

  David straightened, seemed to broaden across the chest, and flashed a smile at her that was both nightmarish and reassuring at once. “They’ll come at us in a rush, probably once the flare-”

  They didn’t wait that long.

  In a blur of movement they were upon them. Margaret managed two quick shots, caught a satisfying spray of blood, then her rime blade was unsheathed, a pistol in her free hand.

  She fired again, the bullet striking the Old Man in the side of his face. That slowed him, she swung out, and the Old Man closed his fingers around the blade. Margaret lifted her pistol, fired again. Blood sprayed from the Old Man’s neck.

  She didn’t see the fist that struck her.

  Only found herself on her back, ears ringing. She snatched out at her pistol, dropped it.

  A heavy boot kicked her in the chest.

  She felt something break, pain boiled across her chest, but she managed to pull free another pistol from her belt, and her free hand found the rime blade. Time stilled, she rolled backwards. Pain again, waves of it. She could taste blood, her nose streamed. The Old Man stood there, wounded and bleeding too.

  He took a step forward, the grass around his boot crackled. Margaret fired.

  Another wound, but he didn’t stop.

  Neither did she. She crouched low, and sprang out, straight towards the Old Man. There was something beautiful in her movements. She knew it, could feel the fluid grace of her limbs, the arc her blade described.

  The Old Man moved to block her, but she was already past his guard. She fired her pistol one last time, right into his chest, then cut off the Old Man’s head. It fell to the earth. She crouched down, grabbed her second rime blade, and looked at David.