Spittle had begun to fly from his mouth and pausing, he grabbed a handkerchief to dab it away.
He was a bit calmer when he continued. “Do you realize the cost involved in building the theaters? Whatever you estimate is vastly lower than their true cost.”
He stopped there. He looked as though he’d said too much. He had been nearly treasonous with his spewing of information about Tawnee, but mentioning the cost of the theaters was too far?
“Assuming we don’t immediately agree to follow you to wonderland, what advice do you have for us. What awaits us on the road ahead?” asked Snow, giving her best approximation of a genuine smile.
It wouldn’t have passed with Max, who seemed always to know when she was faking it, but this Freenan character allowed himself to be charmed.
“Don’t travel by air for your final leg. The New York Terminal is not in New York, but within a special exclusion zone. It is rarely ever used and so, few are aware of it. But if you were recognized there you could be legally detained and imprisoned, mere feet from safety. Apart from that I’m afraid I have very little information. My plan involved bringing you directly to Tawnee, skipping New York entirely,” Freenan said.
“Well, is there a reason you couldn’t bring us directly to New York? It would go a long way towards building trust if you massaged our passage. Don’t you think?” Snow said.
She wasn’t sure they would want his help, but she couldn’t help pressing him on it.
He smiled and said, “If you want details on my very special ‘ride’, you will have to get on board. But suffice to say its specialness would disallow us from traveling to New York at all. It would be… noticed.”
He paused before continuing.
“Surely you will consider coming,” he said, looking pointedly at Snow, “Max has connections, of course I understand, it is a lot to give up,” he nodded at Max, suddenly sympathetic, “but you have none. You could help me, us, to learn so much! You could unite our peoples—Your peoples. We could break down walls and barriers and push forward into the future as it should be, as is our destiny!”
“You’re not really selling me on it,” Snow said. She turned to Max. “Do you need permission to come and go? Here in The North I mean.”
“No,” Max said.
“That’s what I thought,” Snow said. She looked back at Freenan. “I can’t imagine what luxuries you might have, that would be worth becoming a prisoner…”
Freenan said nothing at first then said, “I do wish I could tell you more… but my plan… it shouldn’t… wouldn’t be that way. For either of you… I can’t say more. There are secrets and then… there are secrets. If only you would come… I would tell you everything.” He was still shouting above the ‘whoosh’ of the jets and ‘woop woop woop’ of the polymer propellers they propelled, but still his voice was almost pleading.
“Really, it’s Max you need to convince. I might not remember any of my other friends, but I know what friendship is. And I won’t be giving it up for any of your promises,” Snow said.
She realized too late that she had just informed Freenan that she did not remember her life before. He heard it, and he knew what it meant, she could see that in his eyes. But it only informed him, it did not surprise.
“Max,” Freenan said, “What I said about your connections and the difficulty in severing them… just forget about that will you?”
Max cracked a smile.
“If I could help you get to New York, I would,” Freenan said.
They spent the rest of the short four-hour voyage back in the main cabin at the window booth talking to or listening to Freenan. They stuck to lighter subjects and avoided secrets altogether. By then, Snow felt she had a passable reading on Freenan. He seemed genuine to a point, but he was holding something back, not just the big secrets he admitted he would not speak of, something more. For all that, she felt bad when they promised to meet him in NaChar.
Chapter 27
The hunter could not believe his mix of luck. Back and forth on the pendulum of fate he swung.
The bad turn, brought about by the Craik-induced wave of giant snails, had nearly ended him. He’d managed to avoid capsizing. And he’d stayed safely out of the water, which was filled with all manner of deadly beasts, but he had been forced to limp the rest of the way to the tiny town of Telleran with a tiny ad hoc mast and storm sails.
There he’d acquired another mast. And had heard a tale of a pair of strangers. The strangers had been blamed for a violent altercation involving the discharge of a firearm. It was clear to the hunter that the trouble had not been caused by the target. But it left a question. Had others been set on the trail of the hunter’s target? The search for an answer might take enough time to be of concern but leaving the question unanswered now would be foolish.
Luckily the ‘incident with the strangers’ was the talk of the town and the hunter discovered the identity of his competition with little effort. It took even less effort to extract information from the man. Raniff, it turned out, had been hired not to kill the hunter’s target, but to lure him to Raniff’s employer, a man named Freenan.
Now that the hunter had arrived in SoChar, fate was playing to his favor. The target should have been far away now. If not safe from his grasp in New York, then certainly well on the way. The hunter expected by now to be stretching his resources, squeezing witnesses, and praying to and honoring the gods in an all but hopeless search to find the target. Instead he was standing on the deck of his boat, at dock in the extensive network of the SoChar’s floating outer harbor, watching the target. He, and his lady friend with a seedling crab on a leash, walked by on the neighboring finger. The target was looking at a boat with another man who seemed to be selling it. The boat was large, very old, and looked as though it needed extensive work done. The hunter stood still, trying to hear. He couldn’t make out much over the sloshing of water, the clanking boats, and the rustle of ropes, but he heard “dock fees,” through the din and guessed the boat had been abandoned. If they paid its dock fees it was theirs.
The hunter watched and waited. They wasted little time and paid the man in catch. The same catch acquired by the target when both he and the hunter were in the True North. They spent a little time prepping the boat before setting off. Without the artifact, the hunter noted.
He had already chosen a replacement for his current vessel. He picked up his pre-packed belongings and, as though he had every right, boarded his new boat at the end of the finger. It was a solid-looking vessel, not unlike that his target had piloted out of the True North, though bigger and more modern. Best of all it was rigged for below deck solo piloting. Let the wicked creatures of the open sea do their worst. This time he would be ready.
He set off from the dock immediately and plodded his way slowly through the labyrinth of boats and docks. Before too long he passed out of the narrower passages and into the main water course leading to open sea. He was eager to escape the harbor where, however slim, there was still a chance of his boat’s possession being contested. But he knew better than to draw attention to himself by breaking port etiquette. He exited the harbor when permission was signaled by the harbor master. The hunter gave a small salute in return, the sort he expected the previous owner of this boat might give to curry favor. It was often the small things that mattered.
As he slid out past the impressive walls of the floating harbor, he was surprised to find no trace of the target. The lump of floating refuse should have been easy to spot, perhaps the small ship was faster than he had estimated, and they had raced ahead past the cliff point in the distance. He trimmed the sails tight, taking advantage of the sea breeze blowing towards shore and, zipping along the coast, he reached the cliff point in good time. But there was still no sign of the target’s vessel. He pulled his telescope out of his pack and looked off in the distance ahead. Still nothing. He looked behind, again with the telescope, and there it was, the future reef builder, slowly lumbering towards his position. Wi
th no idea how they had escaped his notice he accepted the situation. Being in the lead would be fine. Better than fine, it was preferable. He knew their destination and could pick and choose an ambush point at his leisure. And, they would be naturally less suspicious of a vessel leading them than one following.
After the few hours of travel, he gave up on trying to keep the target in sight. His various schemes for plausibly slowing his boat would soon no longer be credible and would draw the target’s attention. Assuming they had any time for noticing events beyond the gunwales of their own vessel. The old boat was giving them constant trouble and they spent easily half of their time with repairs, though so far, they managed to keep it operational.
In order to take them at sea, he would certainly have to close and likely board their vessel. The seas were too rough to rely on marksmanship alone, if he missed, the gig would be up, and the target alerted. No, he would take them at the canal locks. There they would be trapped and immobile, waiting for the lock to equalize. Then he would rain death down upon them. Failing that he could move in close when the lock re-opened and polish them off as needed. In either case, he would finally be finished with this job and free to return South. Home. With a reward so great he need never work another job the rest of his life. He would of course. But he wouldn’t have to.
He trimmed his sails and made his way swiftly south to the canal locks.
Chapter 28
By the time their air ship returned them to SoChar, it was too late to catch the end of high tide and leave port. Max bought a well-used old boat, moored in the outer harbor, that he hoped would be sufficient to sail from SoChar to the canal. If they reached the canal, they would be in the clear since most anything afloat could navigate that protected channel without difficulty. But the first half day of sailing had been a lot of stop and very little go. The quick examination of the rough-looking old boat convinced Max that it was sturdy enough, and that assessment held true, but the old timer had other, non-hull sturdiness issues. Many of its lines were old, worn, and waiting to snap. And snap they did. Every hour it seemed rot revealed itself with the crack of a line breaking loose.
It then took time to make repairs. This pattern repeated itself enough that they lost most of the first night to repairs, using up nearly all of their spare rope and much of their gray tape. By dawn they were finally ahead on repairs and were thus able to sail through the next day and night without further breakdowns.
Finally, they reached the inlet that protected the canal, and pushed through the last of the waves at its entrance to the calmer water that fronted the canal’s giant gates. Max was starting to like the old boat. It wasn’t fast, or agile but it had a sturdy grace allowing it to all but ignore some of the smaller waves that would have rocked his other, even more ancient, garg shell vessel.
The tide had dropped to near its lowest point and consequently the inlet walls towered above them to either side. The lock doors were open and to either side water fell in narrow streams, releasing the excess water from the over filled canal above. The arcing streams of water broke into globs during their long descent and cracked hard against the calm water below. Ahead of them a small group of boats were huddled inside the lock. Snow jumped up and down waving her arms to get their attention in hopes they would wait. Either they didn’t see her jumping and shouting, or they just didn’t care to wait any longer (Max bet it was the latter,) because the shockingly tall and massive doors of the lock began to swing outward. The doors finally closed, sending a deep boom down the length of the inlet, and rumbling through Max’s chest.
Snow stopped jumping and turned on Max, “They saw us I know they did.” She turned back to the lock and shook her fist at the massive doors that protected the rude sailors from her wrath, “Crab biters!”
The paired water streams stopped at the source, but the water already released continued to fall in a disconnected column for many seconds. When the cracking of the falling water ceased, it was replaced by a distant, muffled rush of water filling the lock. Max steered the vessel up to the doors where they waited for the locks to cycle.
Each of the towering doors was carved with the shape of a muscular giant which stretched the length of each door. Each giant pressed its impressive boots against the canal's side walls. When closed, the pair appeared back to back, as if together the giants held the water at bay.
It was hard for Max to keep from imagining the torrent of water that would flood the inlet, wreck their boat, and of course drown them all, if the canal doors failed. But the two sentinels had served for as much as a century without failing, so Max put his faith in them to keep it together for another hour.
While they waited, Snow took advantage of the old boat’s large deck, energetically dancing around with Doozer chasing and chittering after her. She hummed a tune from one of the shows they had seen in SoChar, occasionally singing out loud a word or two she remembered.
When she grew bored of dancing, she switched to literally jumping around the boat, in a game with Doozer she called ‘Hot Lava’, though Doozer didn’t quite understand the rules. She made great leaps from the top of the bridge onto the mast, climbing and looping around like a pirate.
It was during the pirate game that she discovered another rotten line and fell to the deck on her back. Doozer jumped on and rolled over her, taking it for part of the game.
Max dropped what he was doing and rushed over. But before he could reach her, Snow jumped up.
“The Lava! It burns!” she yelled, and then continued her game unabated.
Relieved, Max decided to leave his worries aside for a few minutes and joined in on the game. Jumping and leaping were not new activities to him.
After another twenty minutes, they heard smaller canal doors opening above. Someone blew on a horn at the top, which signaled that boats were loading for the trip back down. It meant a little more waiting, but also that they would not have to dock the boat and operate the controls to lower the water back to their current level.
Before long, the cycle was complete. The giants separated and four small vessels emerged, one at a time. Apart from those boats passing out of the lock, they were still alone. No one had arrived to share the trip up.
With the lock empty, Max maneuvered the boat inside. It required both Max and Snow to use the rear facing paddles and for a short time he wished that he had saved some of his jumping and leaping energy for the task. Once they were fully into the lock, Max looked out to the bend in the inlet that lead back to the sea.
There were still no upstream vessels in sight so, laboring with the paddles, they moved the boat into position to use the dock controls. The controls, consisting of long rods that reached all the way to the top of the lock, placed beside an equally long, crusty ladder that also led to the top of the lock. Max pulled on one pole and, powered by water above, the doors began to close.
At the halfway point, Snow yelled for Max to wait. A vessel had rounded the turn and entered the lower canal. Max held the door and they waited for the late arrival, a small, bright yellow pleasure craft. The sole crew member waved and thanked them appreciably. Max activated the doors again and, once they banged closed, he pulled another crusty control rod, allowing water to flow into the lock through channels below them. Slowly they began to rise.
Snow made small talk with the newcomer. He told them he was returning from a trip to see family in SoChar though he was looking forward to seeing his wife and children when he arrived in New York. Snow said something about disguises and then tried to cover the blunder with some of her nonsense. It was a pointless effort as the stranger clearly didn’t understand what she had let slip. It became entirely moot a moment later when the man’s head exploded.
Max’s ears rang from the boom of the shot above, echoing loudly in the enclosed space of the lock. He saw movement above. Snow grabbed him by the arm as she ran and together, they hurried below deck as another deafening shot rang out and thudded into the deck where they had just been.
&nb
sp; “Doozer!” shouted Snow up the stair.
“He’s here,” Max said and spared a moment to comfort the little crab with a tap-tap.
For a moment they stood huddled below deck in the aft of the small ship. Max looked for something to fight with. His axe was stowed nearby so he released it from its restraints, handed it to Snow and continued searching. There were any number of items that suited cudgel duty and he settled on a stone headed hammer. Almost as an afterthought, he picked up a handful of weight stones, strung together on a polymer line, and placed them in his pocket. Something landed on the top deck with a thud. They both looked up as though they might see right through the wooden ceiling. Max took one step towards the forward hatch, intending to take a look. Then the something-on-deck exploded.
The deck warped visibly with the shockwave. Both hatches, forward and aft, shattered and their debris crashed below. Max was not sure if it was Snow or himself, but someone screamed. Max wanted desperately to get out of the boat. But where could they go? They boat itself was surrounded by walls still dozens of feet high, and there was death not only on the landing above, but in the water below. He motioned for Snow to stay put in case she was feeling that same desire to flee. Though it seemed longer, perhaps half a minute passed when another thump sounded from the deck and something bounced down the back stair towards them. Max saw it first and pushed Snow ahead of him up the forward steps. The explosion picked him up and flung him past her. He saw their vessel pass beneath him and then his vision was filled with yellow. Then darkness.
Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1) Page 14